Robert Accettura's
Fun With Wordage

Microsoft released a beta of AntiSpyware this morning. I’ve been pretty anal about spyware for quite some time, so I of course decided to give it a look. I personally use a few products on a regular basis. Spybot S&D, LavaSoft Ad-Aware, and Spyware Blaster are my regular arsenal. I use [...]

But some users of iMesh didn’t seem to be troubled by the actions of Marketscore. Users at iMesh forums chided those who complained, posting messages stating that “without spyware there’s no such thing as free software.”

[Source: Wired.com @ 12/6/2004 9:55 AM EST]
SpreadFirefox anyone? This is a common mindset among average internet users. Something [...]

Well, I reported on Spyware Blaster supporting Mozilla a while back. Now WinPatrol seems to be moving towards Firefox support.
Good to see products feeling it’s relevant to support Firefox. No big vulnerabilities regarding Spyware have been found, and third parties are already jumping on board to help prevent it.

Well, I found this rather alarming. Apparantly some Spyware is learning to disable itself from Spybot S&D. Unfortunately, I went through the list real quick and unchecked all so it searches for everything… but didn’t make note of which made the list (just got home from work, tired, hungry, and not thinking). [...]

Well, it’s a great goal they have in go through all the Evangelism bugs. That should make some real ground in making sure Mozilla not only meets, but kicks IE’s royal butt everywhere.
What I found interesting was the Alexa Query for the Top 100 English Sites. If you look at those websites, most [...]

A must read article on all the bad software, and how to help users stay away from it.
I really hope it goes to the Feds, and we get a law about this. All websites with downloads must be labeled appropriately, and all downloads must warn before such actions take place. Even [...]

Spyware Blaster has been updated to version 3.0. This popular Internet Explorer tool blocks most Spyware ActiveX components and Cookies. New to version 3.0 is support for Mozilla. Since there’s no ActiveX support, it blocks some cookies. Perhaps in the future it will protect against malicous XPI’s.
In any regard, it’s great [...]

According to this Slashdot article Gator is going after websites who refer to it’s “product” as spyware.
From their privacy policy:

We don’t know who our users are…
TGC does not know the identity of GAIN-Supported Software users. We do not transmit to our servers personally identifiable information like email addresses, last name, street addresses, or phone numbers. [...]

I’m a little concerned by some linkage brought by Mozillazine.
Two possible uses here, one inferred is not so good. I’m a bit concerned about this idea being spread around the community. We do NOT want to download Open Source products behind the users back. Doing so would not be a [...]