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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' rin

by 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

by joh6nn 13y ago

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