I’ve spent some spare time this week cleaning up a relative’s computer. The machine is a few years old, and he was afraid it was due for replacement as it had been running slower and slower and seemed to have “funny” troubles. Yep, you guessed it – malware.
In Ed Foster’s Gripelog this week, Ed points to a site that dissects what happens when you agree to install an innocent-looking screensaver. Check out the screenshots and EULAs of the product – and the products that it installs, and the products that those install, and so forth. The junk brought this PIII-500 to its knees. This stuff ought to be illegal. And that they have the gall to hide behind a click-though license is despicable.
Read Ed Foster’s column here: Spyware and the Ghost of UCITA. “While we tend to think of UCITA as being dead outside of a few jurisdictions,…”