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Download.com Bundling Adware With Free Software
Zocalo writes "In a post to the Nmap Hackers list Nmap author Fyodor accuses Download.com of wrapping a trojan installer (as detected by various AV applications when submitted to VirusTotal) around software including Nmap and VLC Media Player. The C|Net installer bundles a toolbar, changes browser settings, and, potentially, performs other shenanigans — all under the logo of the application the user thought they might have been downloading. Apparently, this isn't the first time they have done this, either."
Download.com have always done this... I thought this was how they funded the site.
Can we all agree that downloading free software is stealing from poor programmers who have to live in their mother's basement because they're so poor they cannot even afford their own place? And that as we can read in TFA downloading free software supports criminal activities, and is therefore terrorism? And that this probably means you're a communist child-abusing terrorist?
-- Yes, this was a joke, and no, I don't have a good sense of humor.
Download.com has been funded by bullshit third-party software addons for as long as I can remember. AFAIK, they only recently started this practice of causing the user to download a downloader which would first go through the third-party addons before downloading the actual installer... but it's not like it's any different than before. Yeah, lots of people will just click through and accept everything and that's their fault for not reading things before agreeing to them. Don't blame a free service operated by a for-profit corporation for wanting to make money. Host the Nmap installer yourself if you think it's so easy.
It's rather mindboggling that a decade into the 21st century, people are still going to third party download outfits like this.
Maybe someone wants to enlighten me as to why... I'm not coming up with much.
Sent from my PDP-11
1999 just called. It wants its flagship shareware download repository back.
Seriously, today there are so many better sources to get free stuff (legal or otherwise) than Download.com
Why even bother?
add &dlm=0 to the end of the 'your download is starting' page url..
1 go to a program's page
2. click download now
3. do not download the file that starts cnet_ or cnet2_ (if it doesn't start with cnet it's ok)
4. add the &dlm=0 to the url in the address bar after the spi=whatever junk
enjoy the direct download.. and go to the source next time..or try filehippo or softpedia (either one with your adblocker running)
It's a shame, cnet and download.com used to be moderately safe ways of downloading new trial and freeware software. In my opinion shareware is now an outdated practice, with it now possible to find an open source equivalent for just commercial piece of software.
Rapidshare, for that authentic 90s warez feel.
Not hosting your own files, or torrents for larger stuff, looks about as professional as a hotmail address on a business card.
That's what I finally had to do, when some entity (might've been download.com, might've been someone else) offered an alternative download location for my software - which bundled some sort of malware installer onto my software. After one attempt to remove them as an alternate, I was told I could request my software be removed, and that's what I did. This occurred back in 2004.
This extremely common practice of bundling garbage with every download is the cancer that is killing Windows freeware, and no, it's not limited to Download.com.
A while ago, when I was in-between jobs and looking for some freelance work, I stumbled upon an entire "community" of scammers known as PPI : Pay-Pay-Install. This forum was all about participating in these shady bundling practices, discussing the advertisers that were most tolerant to things like silent installs, home page swaps, BHO's that redirect your Google searches through a proxy (to hijack ad revenue), Vista sidebar widgets, toolbars, bookmarks, and start-up items, along with uploading deceptively named and heavily trojaned stuff via P2P. This is why, with every goddamned Windows utility you get these days, you get prompted to installt he Ask.com toolbar, BonziBuddy, free trials for McAfee's swiss cheese, and a laundry list of other standards.
CNet should indeed be made an example of, and burned to the ground, but they didn't start this gangbang, the advertisers did. Follow the money... There is no reason why users should tolerate this aberrant behaviour.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"If we warn the past about an event like 9/11, and they actually DO something about it, what happens then? Would the American government spin it even further out of proportion, claiming the attacks would have used nukes and biological weapons? There's no way of knowing for certain.
We know what we have: A world that is worse off than before, yes, but not on the brink of having the planet destroyed. With the possibility that we could make things a lot worse and start World War III, is is really sensible to send messages back in time?"
Family Guy did that exact plot.
Here is the Hulu Link. Your Country May Vary.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/299685/family-guy-back-to-the-pilot#s-p1-so-i0
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm part of the ScummVM group, a cross platform software for playing various classic adventure games, and the question of Download.com came up when we released the next version of our software. There were some arguments for including it on such sites, such as giving greater visibility to the project. However, the issue of the bundled 'crapware' was considered too big a downside. We weren't that desperate for wider coverage of our software, and we certainly didn't want people to adversely associate our software with malware.
These days I wouldn't touch download.com even if you paid me.
Needed to install 7-zip on a windows computer, and was in a hurry, so I went to the first Google result instead of sourceforge. I aborted the install when I saw the "install this great toolbar" button. Still, I almost messed up my friend's computer. Important safety tip #1: Google doesn't always produce the result you really want anymore. Important safety tip #2: when installing open source software, Sourceforge is probably where you want to look.
Assuming you are seriously asking and don't have your toung in your cheek: the key downside is that people will associate the trojan with your product, if they don't like the changes it makes to their systems they might blame you not cnet.
I am shocked that the number of nmap users who are also download.com users would be significant.
Yes, anti-virus software seems to work fine. I reccommend any of the ones listed here.
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