Security and Anti-Virus

[Zhen-Xjell]

http://castlecops.com/article-5570-nested-0-0.html

Nice second part article.

[CajunTek]

Thanks Zhen.. I have a new bookmark!!

[Zhen-Xjell]

My pleasure. Did you read about the whole Aluria Spyware Eliminator issue?

[CajunTek]

Yep.. In bed with whenu... I was never a fan.. am less of one now...

[Zhen-Xjell]

And you saw how they have two different database definitions for the public? One with WhenU, and one without?

[TNTaangela]

ZHEN-XJELL... Your post made me curious about the Aluria-WhenU issue. I have been deeply out of touch for awhile, and didn't know about it. So I went searching and found this detailed and excellent discussion about it; and read it thoroughly.

eburger68 wrote some excellent posts about it. In the barest of nutshells, it boils down to his statement that, "no anti-spyware company should ever exploit the same advertising model as used by the applications it targets, no matter the legitimacy of the particular adware company it partners with. Period."

I also did a lot of reading at computercops.biz (which also has excellent info about, and is closely following, the Aluria issue), spywarewarrior.com, and various other sites pertaining to scumware. Finally had to stop myself. It's quite the bottomless pit, sigh.

I fear that we'll soon see others follow in Aluria's (and AOL's) tracks. The casual computer user won't realize they are being suckered, instead they'll feel even more protected. This method of marketing is quite lucrative and will become the new standard. Shudder

Thanks for mentioning this here. I am now better informed and able to inform others.

All Best!

[Zhen-Xjell]

You might also want to read this one:

http://castlecops.com/article-5524--0-0.html

AOL insists on keeping WhenU listed, whereas Aluria claims WhenU is spyware safe.

[Zhen-Xjell]

A better search:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=aluria

[TNTaangela]

Zhen-Xjell... Looks like we are on the same page. I use Google too. I had also read that article (and others) at castlecops.com (aka computercops.biz).

Yep, It's going to be interesting to see what AOL does. But I don't see them changing anything. Except to remove WhenU from that list soon. And set a precedent making this practice acceptable.

Thanks again.