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Digsby IM Client Quietly Installs Badware

Posted by kdawson on from the pushing-the-envelope-and-the-bounds-of-good-taste dept.

An anonymous reader writes "IM company Digsby has quietly included malware in an update to their client software that utilizes users' computing power and bandwidth while idle for a quick buck. When questioned, developers at Digsby claim that they have done no wrong and that users should not complain because the client software is 'free.'" The money-making distributed computing software is in addition to six "crapware" apps that users must refuse during installation. The terms of service that no one ever reads does describe the CPU- and bandwidth-robbing moneymaker, and its off switch is located behind the "Support Digsby" menu item.

2 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Use Pidgin ... by Zen-Mind · · Score: 5, Informative

    The power of choice: change IM client. There are tons of free IM client, just change it to something else like Pidgin.

  2. FOSS, maybe? by k33l0r · · Score: 5, Informative

    Perhaps this is a good point in time to switch to Pidgin (multi-platform and my personal choice), Adium (Mac OS X), Empathy (Gnome), Kopete (KDE), or some other, more trustworthy client?