5 ms·

i appreciate your argument, but semantics are important. malware is software that is malicious. a toolbar that i did not intend to install, but is not malicious

• DougBTX 13y ago
  Where do you draw the line of malicious? I guess somewhere between selling your usage patterns vs selling your passwords as you type them into websites.
  • joh6nn 13y ago
    selling our usage patterns is something that nearly every major site does. anybody who's displaying ads is complicit if not active, and Google is a friggin' ring leader. do you consider these major players to be malicious? these toolbars don't have backdoor downloaders, they don't display pop-ups, they're not damaging our devices. they suck, i hate them, i uninstall them for my friends and family. but they're no more malicious than ads on the washington post, and they're there for the same reasons. for the record, i think this is a bad move on SourceForge's part. it's misleading, it's abusive of user's goodwill and trust, and most users are going to accidentally install these toolbars that they don't want or need. but just because it's a bad idea and it's intrusive and rude, doesn't make it malicious.
    • pbreit 13y ago
      "they suck, i hate them, i uninstall them for my friends and family." Then they are malware.
    • belorn 13y ago
      malicious software is programs that runs against the wishes of the person who owns the hardware. They try to illegally gain access to private computer systems and do this either through social engineering which depend on tricking the users, or by exploiting a bug. Toolbars are of the first kind, in that they depend on tricking the user into installing them, and by obfuscate how to remove them. Ads on the washington post that runs code in my browser is in the same boat. They depend on tricking the users computer into running code contrary to the wishes of those who own the computer. Software like ad-block, ghostery, no-script, disconnect and many other are designed to prevent said malware from running. They are the antivirus tools of 2010s, and is thankfully so far free. Last, lets just put down Micrsoft own definition of malware: 'Malware' is a general term used to refer to a variety of forms of hostile or intrusive software
• charonn0 13y ago
  Not malware, granted. Let's call it scumware, then.
  • derefr 13y ago
    Or possibly spamware. In the same way spam ends up uselessly clogging up your inbox, spamware ends up uselessly clogging up your computer.
• joejulian 13y ago
  The argument against the use of the word "malware" also assumes that the "mal" is "malicious". The prefix "mal" comes from the french word and indicates "illness" or "affliction" which most certainly matches with the regard for these pieces of software.
  • joh6nn 13y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=define+malware https://www.google.com/search?q=define+malware "software that is intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems. origin: blend of malicious and software ." The regard that people hold for these pieces of software aside, most of them are not actively malicious. Yes, they're annoying, but most of them are not doing anything worse to you than what the major ad networks are doing. I hate that, I block that behavior with noscript and adblock, etc. But it's a stretch to call that malicious.
    • pbreit 13y ago
      Toolbars definitely damage software.
    • markbernard 13y ago
      It is not a stretch. These programs slow down the users browser experience. Though they may not be actively in collusion, more and more of these tool bars are installed and the browser almost grinds to a halt. I have opened the browser on my parents laptop to fin the top half of the screen cut off because it was full of tool bars. While they may not be intentionally malicious the result is malicious. Therefore they are malware.
  • dalek_cannes 13y ago
    Mal. That's "bad", in the Latin.
• wslh 13y ago
  Even if it is not malware those toolbars are a scam.
• rhizome 13y ago
  Crapware. Shovelware. You know what he means.