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DivX Now Installs Malware

• rangibaby 13y ago
  Why would you ever install DivX when VLC exists?
  • derefr 13y ago
    Presumably, you might want DirectShow codecs for use in something else. VLC is just a binary blob; you can't harness its power to do, say, batch watermark insertion.
    • velodrome 13y ago
      If your on Windows, you can use a codec pack: http://www.cccp-project.net/ http://www.cccp-project.net/ http://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm http://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
      • nyar 13y ago
        Why use a codec pack for a single codec? On windows you can use FFDSHOW or LAV or XVID to decode divx.
        • velodrome 13y ago
          It does have options. You can choose what to install in the codec pack.
        • Daiz 13y ago
          Installing separate decoders for every single format is just dumb and a waste of time. Something like LAV Filters will handle pretty much everything you throw at it, and on top of that you just need a media player like MPC-HC and a decent subtitle renderer like xy-vsfilter. Incidentally, this is pretty much exactly what CCCP gives you with a simple single installer.
        • jules 13y ago
          Because my time is more valuable than 2MB of disk space.
          • Semaphor 13y ago
            So install CCCP and not a codec pack :)
            • cdash 13y ago
              I thought CCCP is a codec pack, it's in the name?
              • makomk 13y ago
                At this point, I think the only codec CCCP installs by default is LAV, and it may not even include any other codecs anymore; it's called a codec pack mostly for historical reasons. The main advantage of CCCP is that it has sensible default settings and a good configuration app. It also installs various non-codec DirectShow filters for stuff like subtitle support.
                • Semaphor 13y ago
                  Gabest's FLV Splitter is a FLV decoder. Personally I do not think 2 codecs are commonly understood as a codec pack but HN strongly disagrees. The funny thing is that when people complain about codec packs in general it's that they bloat your system with tons of codecs you do not need, not that you get one codec for nearly everything and one for FLV.
  • josteink 13y ago
    Because VLC is a merely player, not a system-wide DirectShow component which can be reused and composed in processing pipelines by all third party Windows-applications. That said, there are a million other codecs you can/should install in place of DivX which is fully DivX-compatible and able to decode and encode DivX video properly.
    • r0h1n 13y ago
      > a system-wide DirectShow component which can be reused and composed in processing pipelines by all third party Windows-applications. Why should a user care for this? I don't have DivX on any of my systems for years now and I've never come across a context where I needed it.
      • mappu 13y ago
        DivX specifically is not so useful now that windows (7? vista?) bundles good MPEG-4 decoders for both ASP and AVC (but on XP-class hardware, it was more performant than XviD). I think the DivX software bundle includes an encoder, so there's that. There's still a few reasons directshow is still relevant: - Getting video thumbnails for .mkv, .ogg, and .flv files in windows explorer - Adding postprocessing filters (deblock, aspect ratio correction, pixel shaders, subtitling) to media players that don't otherwise support it (windows media player) - Adding AV format and container support to your existing media player, for formats that Microsoft don't bundle decoders for (e.g. H.265, VP8, theora, daala, silk...)
        • Bud 13y ago
          These aren't very good reasons: 1. If video thumbnails don't work in Windows Explorer, Microsoft should fix that, or third parties should fix it by means other than malware installs. 2. Nobody should be using Windows Media Player. It's awful. Again, if it needs fixing, it should be fixed without malware. 3. If your existing media player lacks codecs, this can be fixed in several good ways. Malware is not the way to fix this. I conclude that DivX is completely worthless, since it adds nothing that can't be better added in other ways, and is now aggressively evil as well.
  • xarball 13y ago
    I find that vlc (a la ffmpeg) doesn't implement the divx codec properly in some cases. In vlc, some of the videos that i have get slower the farther along you are in the playback stream. Yet with the Divx Player, the media plays back fine. It's only for some media, but it's a problem nonetheless. I suspect that it may have something to do with it being a somewhat reverse-engineered codec in ffmpeg?
    • mappu 13y ago
      DivX video is just standard MPEG-4 ASP, if ffmpeg doesn't play it in time and absolutely bit-perfectly then file a bug.
      • josteink 13y ago
        Incorrect audio-sync was a known issue back in the early days of MPEG4 encoding. Getting it right was very, very hard, and some tools even came with options to "tweak" the output-stream to get things synched up, specifically tailored for the behaviour of the Frauenhofer MP3 decoder. I suspect some videos encoded using these tools may render and synch "incorrectly" on newer players not aware of the workaround done in the past to make improper codecs behave properly, even though they may be 100% within spec. I'm guessing the DivX-player (which sounds like a very stuck in the past kind of thing) uses old codecs and are able to account for this, by not following spec while rendering these "tweaked" video-files.
    • jbk 13y ago
      Hello, I would be very interested to fix all that. Please mail me to give me samples, and I'll do my best to fix it.
  • Yaggo 13y ago
    VLC is excellent player. For OS X, there is also open-source software Perian which brings support for wide range of video decoders as a QuickTime component.
    • mappu 13y ago
      Perian is wonderful, but note that it was discontinued early last year.
    • Nowyouknow 13y ago
      MPlayerX is also a great alternative on OSX.
  • benologist 13y ago
    DivX has a streaming web player that's quite good.
  • UweSchmidt 13y ago
    Slightly offtopic, everybody knows of VLC, but do you know of any well-curated list of non-crappy software in general? I'm thinking of criteria such as: No malware, no advertisements, no bloat, no phoning home, no unnecessary/forced updates, in case of mobile: no unnecessary permissions. Recently I needed to rip a CD quite urgently and the software I used has tainted my PC like a terrible sin of the past.
    • ivoflipse 13y ago
      I use Ninite to set up a new computer, there are some elements that I generally skip (Office/anti-virus trials), but it can install a lot of useful programs without having to download dozens of installers.
    • Cyykratahk 13y ago
      http://portableapps.com/apps http://portableapps.com/apps is a pretty good resource. The apps are portable versions (made with permission of the original developers) that are meant to be installed on flash drives, but you can click through to the official project pages of each one to find the desktop versions.
    • fletchowns 13y ago
      but do you know of any well-curated list of non-crappy software in general? <insert your favorite linux distro here>
    • maxerickson 13y ago
      Too late, but on Windows, use Exact Audio Copy or ImgBurn. I have a list of useful software, but I haven't published it anywhere. Maybe I should do that.
    • WickyNilliams 13y ago
      On windows I now use Media Player to rip CDs, but in the past I've used CDex. Simple UI, gets the job done without fuss: http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/ http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
      • 13y ago
• OriginalAT 13y ago
  It seems like someone who makes decisions for DivX got a bit greedy. I am curious why Bing though? It seems to me like all the shady "Install this too?" dialogs are for Bing toolbars and such.
  • nivla 13y ago
    Google [1] and Ask [2] isn't better either, they are offered with most updates of Adobe Flash and Java. Guess everyone will sneak something in if given the opportunity. [1] http://i.imgur.com/5mAdH.png http://i.imgur.com/5mAdH.png [2] http://i.imgur.com/3zWPK.jpg http://i.imgur.com/3zWPK.jpg
    • yuhong 13y ago
      Google Chrome is the browser I am using right now, and I used to use the Google Toolbar (only stopped when browsers introduced built-in search boxes).
      • nivla 13y ago
        Sorry I am not following you. Are you trying to say its okay to bundle/install 3rd party products that are considered good/acceptable? If so keep in mind humans have different tastes, what maybe considered good by you or me may not be by others. It is considered unethical to bundle programs since the days of Bonzi Buddy.
  • rhizome 13y ago
    Why Bing? Because Microsoft is desperate enough for market share to buy traffic through affiliate marketing.
  • chris11 13y ago
    I think Bing is more willing to spend money to get traffic. You can easily get $5 a month in Amazon credit from their rewards program just by using Bing. They have a few other interesting promotions, such as starbucks cards and XBox Live Gold membership. But I'm sure this is costing them a decent amount of money.
• mikevm 13y ago
  If you still need a catch-all codec (and splitter), use the ffmpeg-based LAV filters (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156191 http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156191).
  • nitrogen 13y ago
    How does that compare to ffdshow?
    • Daiz 13y ago
      Quoting a CCCP developer on the subject[1]: > In short, though: More support for formats to be decoded, best HW acceleration available as open source, much less hacks in there compared to FFDShow-tryouts, uses vanilla-based ffmpeg libraries instead of the mess that is in FFDShow-tryouts, as well as LAV Filters just being still in active development compared to FFDShow-tryouts being dead. FFDShow still offers more extensive video/audio postprocessing options over LAV Filters, but most people are probably not even aware that they even exist. Anyway, personally I would highly recommend using CCCP if you're on Windows - it doesn't ship with any useless extras (like most codec packs you might find on the internet) and is pre-configured to maximize compatibility and playback quality - you get better quality than VLC will offer, for example. And if you throw madVR on top of that you can make it even better with top of the line rendering and scaling (though the difference isn't admittedly that big). [1] http://www.cccp-project.net/forums/index.php?topic=6677.msg42756#msg42756 http://www.cccp-project.net/forums/index.php?topic=6677.msg4... If you're on OS X or some *nix and want a simple video playback solution you're better off using VLC, though. For advanced users, there's mpv.
      • cdman 13y ago
        I would recommend __against__ CCCP and any other codec packs. Codec packs in general are pieces of software ripped from the original installs and put together in ways the orignal author didn't expect. Thus it will crap out with a high probability (or even if not, it will create all kinds of issues like consuming CPU / memory for no good reason, Explorer crashing when trying to generate previews, etc). In addition, using those codecs without the original install kit is against the license in almost all cases (just because "you can download it freely" doesn't mean you can redistribute it). Finally, many codec packs are infected by malware (although CCCP might not be, I have no experience with it). In summary: - Use VLC - If not, use http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/ http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/ which is not dead - Alternatively you could try out LAV filters which I learned about from the parent - https://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/ https://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/ - haven't used it, don't know how good (or not) it is Never, ever use codec packs.
• shocks 13y ago
  http://www.cccp-project.net/ http://www.cccp-project.net/
  • comex 13y ago
    FWIW, CCCP is for Windows, and the complaint in the link is about OS X.
• guard-of-terra 13y ago
  Search distribution is a common way of monetizing freeware and it doesn't count as malware unless it resists switching search providers back. But that person surely needs VLC instead, which too may come with 3rd-party crapware installer if you're not careful.
  • brigade 13y ago
    This actually might be a first for OS X freeware. Certainly I've never seen (or heard of) a 3rd party toolbar/whatever bundled into an OS X package before this.
    • drewcrawford 13y ago
      Vuze for Mac does.
  • kalleboo 13y ago
    > it doesn't count as malware unless it resists switching search providers back Bullshit. If installing software changes random settings on my computer, it's malicious. If it was a default in the app itself, that's a different matter.
    • guard-of-terra 13y ago
      It tends to ask you in the installer, but if you forgot to uncheck the checkbox, that's what you get. Remember the thing about being the product.
  • jbk 13y ago
    > But that person surely needs VLC instead, which too may come with 3rd-party crapware installer if you're not careful. Bullshit. VLC has no crapware in the installer and installers doing that are illegal.
    • guard-of-terra 13y ago
      What word of "3rd-party crapware installer" needs translation?
• oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  Any piece of software for which "Click the 'hot dog' button" is a non-ironic command is probably best avoided...
  • paddyoloughlin 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure that the button they are referring to is part of Chrome, not divx.
    • oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
      Oops - I just realised that myself. Still a) that's /really/not common enough parlance to be using in a support forum and b) that usage just trivialises the (very important) issue, at least in my ear. I don't get the impression that Conduit are taking this seriously. Still, I guess I'll never forget the name for that icon now :)
      • paddyoloughlin 13y ago
        Apparently it's what the Chrome developers themselves call it [1]. I'd never heard the name before the original link either. It just makes me wonder even more how such an icon became as widespread as that one is. [1] http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Chrome-Wrench-Icon-Is-Getting-Replaced-with-a-Hotdog-284623.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Chrome-Wrench-Icon-Is-Get...
• jagermo 13y ago
  Missleading title? I think it could be classfied as crapware but malware?
  • danielrmay 13y ago
    Is malware crapware?
    • maaku 13y ago
      Bad logic.
  • Semaphor 13y ago
    For many people changing the searchengine is not a change they can revert themselves. Neither is having less space because of an additional toolbar. Both changes hurt them. Malware.
    • jagermo 13y ago
      yes, but you can uninstall crapware via the normal ways - malware needs to be removed with special tools.
      • astrodust 13y ago
        If it's malicious, that is, changes things without express consent, then it's malware. No debate. End of story. Malware is a parasite. Crapware is something that's installed and shows up on your desktop, may even start automatically and produce pop-ups all the time, but doesn't alter the behavior of other applications. It's just junk, but it's not inherently detrimental or damaging. Crapware applications are barnacles.
• riffraff 13y ago
  I updated the divx software a few days ago and noticed this. It has a rather obvious "install conduit search powered by bing" checkbox. While this is defaulted to "yes", is very easily set to "no".
  • nyrina 13y ago
    The problem isn't that it's easy to set to no. The problem is that it's defaulted to yes That means I can't just click next, next, next, install, finish without getting "infected", and the guys making these installers knows this - and takes advantage of it to make extra money. Legally, it's sketchy at best - the EU has a law (I believe it's a law, at least, someone back me up?) against it defaulting to yes. Morally, it's plain wrong and taking advantage of the innocent.
    • reidrac 13y ago
      Defaulting to "no" would be better, but I can't fully agree with you in the "innocent" part because the real problem are users that can't use a computer, and this is just a tiny annoyance compared to other things that can happen if the user "can't read" and clicks next, next, next without thinking. This was posted to HN recently, and it sums it up nicely: http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-comput...
      • astrobe_ 13y ago
        I would rather say that this kind of behaviour is one of the tiny little things that make computers harder to use in general. We all know of relatives that just use their computer for Facebook and Farmville, and get "infected" by a needless virus scanner and/or alternative browser every time they have to update Flashplayer. It is so vicious that even people that are aware of this kind of practice may get caught. The fact that users "can't read" (but equally often programmers also "can't write") is no excuse.
      • jmathai 13y ago
        It doesn't only affect users who don't know better. I can't tell you the number of times I've hurried through an installer only to realize I forgot to pay closer attention and uncheck a checkbox. If I download a program and install it then that's my intention. I don't intend to install other software along side of it. Just saying, this isn't an issue about people not knowing how to use a computer. It's a dark pattern that hurts everyone.
• anon1385 13y ago
  It's worth noting that PG has defended this practice when YC Companies do it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 The apps that get installed are "crapware." This one seems a matter of opinion. A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us. But the users are choosing to install these things. If you want to stop this kind of thing you need to get angry at the people who fund it and make money from it. That includes Paul Graham and Y Combinator. More about the YC funded InstallMonetizer: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806 Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows (467 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086043 InstallMonetizer quietly starts editing website, privacy policy http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059454 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059454 Y Combinator-Backed InstallMonetizer Is A Selective Ad Network For Desktop
  • mercuryrising 13y ago
    That quote is taken a little bit out of context. The first part is referencing the opinions of others about InstallMonetizer - people said they think IM was installing crapware. PG said that crapware is a relative term, and if people have the option of declining to install something, then they deemed it to be not crapware. We can't handcuff everyone into making the same decisions we do - regardless of what we think the quality of the software and motives are. Educating users is the goal we should be shooting for, so when they see a screen with check boxes, they don't just hit agree and go on, they realize what clicking "I Agree" could entail. I think that message could be something along the lines of "Don't just agree, think before you click".
    • RobAley 13y ago
      At the end of the day, if people really wanted this software, the providers could default to making it opt-in and on balance they wouldn't be any the worse off for it. There is a clear reason "I Agree" is pre-checked. Educating users is a band-aid, treating the symptom and not the cause. The cause is scummy companies like InstallMonetizer, and hopefully people like PG/YC will come to see how it hurts their brand, no matter how they think reality differs from peoples impressions of such companies.
• jpswade 13y ago
  I don't remember the last time I installed DivX.
• easy_rider 13y ago
  Best part: "Select MacOS, and delete the MACSearchTakeOver.js file" DivX as a brand is dying. Desperate times etc... I've always hated their player and bloatware. In fact I was surprised that they survived without doing something like this earlier.
• sleepyhead 13y ago
  Any way to just install the codec on OSX? I don't want this 300mb app with crapware. I just want to watch the movie.
  • arb99 13y ago
    Just play it through VLC if you just wanna watch a movie that uses divx
    • sleepyhead 13y ago
      That means I still need to install 300mb of divx crapware, right?
      • slig 13y ago
        Nope. VLC will play anything out-of-the-box.
        • sleepyhead 13y ago
          Cool. Thanks.
• lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  I think we should look to our routers for a solution. I would happily pay extra for a LinkSys-FooBar that acts as a NetFlow aggregator, as a fail2ban proxy as a decent cache, and gave me reporting and storage out of the box. Then a simple QA site can let people know the answer to "Why has my laptop dialed to crapware.com 5000 times this month?" Just add in a feature that stores all your photos and videos and lets you upload the better ones for granny to see and you have a home hub that actually is not a games machine in disguise.
  • eksith 13y ago
    That's applying technology to a, fundamentally, people problem and it may not yield predictable results. Such solutions aren't going to appeal to the vast majority of non-tech savvy people (and hosted solutions are arbitrary at best, censorship-inclined at worst) therefore will not make a dent in the actual proliferation of "crapware". In short, anything that requires more effort than is necessary to install crapware, will not see adoption rates higher than the crapware itself. We need something else.
    • lifeisstillgood 13y ago
      Maybe I was not clear (its pretty hard). I think that there will be a home hub, a technology helper, supplemented from the cloud, but anchored to the family home network point, that is the natural place to deliver a wide variety of services, digital backup, net nanny, finacnes fridges etc. Make something the gateway to the house and that something will be defended by house owners as much as the physical house itself - it becomes the virtual avatar for the house. It will probably be called Jarvis.
  • waps 13y ago
    You'd pay a hell of a lot extra for such a router. It wouldn't be much help in finding out what happened though. Such a thing would be much better implemented as a windows application firewall. It would be able to detect which app did it, which dll initiated it (so you can catch IE extensions in the act), and it would have a hard drive available for storing the results. This sort of tool does in fact exists as part of pretty much every antivirus product.
• Shivetya 13y ago
  I have had to use the about:config features of Firefox to remove these search engine redirects. The regular dialogs never seem to fix it all. One example, while I was able to use the default dialog to fix the search engine from the top bar, the right click look ups all went to the unwanted engine.
• thenomad 13y ago
  IMO, the big problem here isn't so much the install as the uninstall. Think that installing Conduit will add value to my computer? Then go ahead, default it to "install" - but let me uninstall it in the usual way. It's the fact that most of these programs are designed to be as hard to uninstall as possible that's the big problem. And as soon as you're trying to stop me uninstalling your software, IMO, you're basically making malware.
• tikumo 13y ago
  This is why I use VLC :)
• davexunit 13y ago
  Who the hell still installs divx?
  • Dirlewanger 13y ago
    Seriously. Xvid became immensely popular for a reason. Using Divx for recreational purposes is living in the past.
• earlz 13y ago
  In other news, the new version of the Ask Toolbar is out.. and it comes bundled with some kind of spyware called Java
  • danielweber 13y ago
    I installed Java a few times last week and never got, er, asked about the Ask Toolbar once. Was I just amazingly lucky?
    • alayne 13y ago
      There are two versions. Try installing the version from java.com http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/ask_toolbar.xml http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/ask_toolbar.xml
      • sigkill 13y ago
        I find it sad, no, completely pathetic that java needs to use such monetization strategies. It's a god-damn shame.
• Mikeb85 13y ago
  Let's call this what it is. Not malware, just crapware. Every service you sign up for, everything you install for free (minus some open-source stuff), offers you something, and defaults to yes. You have to un-check boxes to send you emails, to install crap, to agree to performance tracking, etc... If I don't like the terms of something, I simply don't use it. That's why I'm on Linux, Ubuntu to be precise (and I opted out of the Amazon lens - not because I hate it, but because I simply don't buy that much stuff from Amazon).
  • parennoob 13y ago
    No. Crapware is some stupid program you should be able to uninstall via Control Panel (Windows) or drag from the App folder into Trash (Mac) Anything for which the uninstall instructions (I define uninstall as 'completely remove everything related to this from my computer') go: [To change the 404 error page]: - Go to the Firefox folder: open Finder and navigate to Applications and right click on firefox.app - Select MacOS, and delete the MACSearchTakeOver.js file (wtf?) - Go to the folder Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/CHOOSEActiveProfile. Note, USERNAME = your username. CHOOSEActiveProfile will be a unique name, for example "6y5m281v.default" - Delete the file called abstraction.js is malware. There is no way in hell a regular user should be expected to do that. You notice I didn't say anything about Ubuntu -- by and large (apart from the Amazon Lens debacle), these crap/malware peddlers have left Linux alone. How would you feel if you had to edit xorg.conf or something manually because some package you installed from someone's PPA made your screen display ads every 15 minutes? :P
  • notatoad 13y ago
    Conduit is malware. They go out of their way to make their software difficult to remove. If the only way to get something off your computer is malwarebytes, it's malware.
• moot 13y ago
  I'm amused by the user being more offended by the choice of search engine than the crapware itself.
  • parennoob 13y ago
    True. While reading it the second time, "How dare you wedge such a nullity when everyone uses google?" and "voit-la' a disgusting bing search page." made me laugh out loud and almost C|N>K.
• swat535 13y ago
  DivX has always had these sorts of things installed. (also... Who still uses DivX today??) this more of a Bing hate really.
• mratzloff 13y ago
  "Rarrgh!! They are not giving me a thing for free!!" People don't click on ads. People don't even see ads anymore. And people don't want to pay for software. So to continue offering a free product, they need to monetize it somehow. They do this by bundling other software (not malware). This is the reason the industry is moving in this direction. Maybe you don't care because you use Xvid or VLC or something. Great! You are not affected. Don't like it? Invent an alternate monetization scheme. You'll clean up.
  • Trakzstarz 13y ago
    Wrong answer. Give it up spammer.
• ffrryuu 13y ago
  Well, so does the NSA.
• sadkingbilly 13y ago
  Every time one of these issues pops up with users crying foul, I can't help but grin, and be reminded of the popup-days of yesteryear. Ah, the good old days - where a video player hijacking your homepage was nothing. People didn't get annoyed until it started spewing popups with "Your PC is not optimized! Click HERE", "You WIN! Click HERE". I bet if divx did that, they'd really make some money.
• tlrobinson 13y ago
  As much as I sometime dislike Apple's walled garden App Store it does prevent things like this from happening (on iOS, at least). Sandboxing of Mac App Store apps is also another good step, but we still need ways to install system components like codecs without giving away the keys to the castle. As an aside, I've been trying to figure out how to use dtrace to get a log of all files touched by an application or installer (including sub-processes). If anyone has a good solution I'd love to hear it.
• msh 13y ago
  WEll, the apple app store comes with a lot of negatives, but disallowing stuff like this is one of the best things they have done.
• Groxx 13y ago
  Conduit is extremely intrusive and difficult to completely remove. There is no excuse for its behavior. They very clearly know it's malware and they try everything to keep it installed. Yes, malware. Not just crap. Crap implies merely bad, this hides from you and tries to influence you and prevent you from removing it. Nothing merely crappy does that. The last-remaining spot that kept coming back for me was that it wrote itself into Firefox's XUL - no plugin to remove, no toolbar, no hint that it had done something like that. I only found it because I decided to grep every file in every FF directory on my system. If it gets installed on your system, or on someone else's, and you have Firefox installed, remove all the plugins and crap and reinstall Firefox.
  • lawnchair_larry 13y ago
    Yeah, Conduit is very nasty. I had it remaining on a laptop for years because of the firefox infection method.