4 ms·

The problem is that 80legs works to a trojan/malware type model - the runtime is installed as a background service on apps like Digsby. It's fair to say that m

by dotBen 17y ago

The problem is that 80legs works to a trojan/malware type model - the runtime is installed as a background service on apps like Digsby. It's fair to say that many people who are using these apps don't know that their machine is being given tasks to work on in the background. Aside from the unknown bandwidth/cpu/throughput unknowns IMHO there is an ethical question of using this software. From what I can see there is no opt-out other than not to install the software the runtime is bundled with. And that assumes you even know it's being installed.

jdrock 17y ago
Actually all Digsby users are told up-front during the install process about Plura. And you can easily turn off Plura from Digsby.
- dotBen 17y ago
  Hmmmm. I would respectfully disagree. I'm somewhat conflicted as I have interests in a rival product in the twitter app space but IMHO it's not clear to your "average Joe" user what is going on. Further more, from my own experience, once you tell someone who's using an app that has Plura running what it is doing, people tend to be quite concerned and certainly not wanting to have it on their system. JDRock: I also believe you work with/for 80legs but can't see any disclosure in your posts. Not wanting to be a d*ck but if you are going to say that it's obvious and easy to turn off (and de-karma me for my comment) I think you should state whether that's from a NPOV or whether you're actually involved in the product.
  - jdrock 17y ago
    I think it's fairly obvious from my posts that I work for 80legs. If you try out the latest Digsby installation, you'll see that they've changed the install process. So while I suppose I am biased, it's also a fairly objective thing to observe. Lifehacker even posted a follow-up article applauding Digsby for the change, if I remember correctly. What I've seen is that if people are told about Plura up-front and have the option to turn it off from the get-go, they have no qualms about it. Digsby didn't do an awesome job about this initially, but they've corrected it. Also, I wasn't the only that d-ked you.
ramanujan 17y ago
It seems a lot like SETI@Home or the Google Toolbar, or really anything that sends back "anonymized data" or compute cycles.

by dotBen 17y ago

jdrock 17y ago

Actually all Digsby users are told up-front during the install process about Plura. And you can easily turn off Plura from Digsby.

dotBen 17y ago
Hmmmm. I would respectfully disagree. I'm somewhat conflicted as I have interests in a rival product in the twitter app space but IMHO it's not clear to your "average Joe" user what is going on. Further more, from my own experience, once you tell someone who's using an app that has Plura running what it is doing, people tend to be quite concerned and certainly not wanting to have it on their system. JDRock: I also believe you work with/for 80legs but can't see any disclosure in your posts. Not wanting to be a d*ck but if you are going to say that it's obvious and easy to turn off (and de-karma me for my comment) I think you should state whether that's from a NPOV or whether you're actually involved in the product.
- jdrock 17y ago
  I think it's fairly obvious from my posts that I work for 80legs. If you try out the latest Digsby installation, you'll see that they've changed the install process. So while I suppose I am biased, it's also a fairly objective thing to observe. Lifehacker even posted a follow-up article applauding Digsby for the change, if I remember correctly. What I've seen is that if people are told about Plura up-front and have the option to turn it off from the get-go, they have no qualms about it. Digsby didn't do an awesome job about this initially, but they've corrected it. Also, I wasn't the only that d-ked you.

ramanujan 17y ago

It seems a lot like SETI@Home or the Google Toolbar, or really anything that sends back "anonymized data" or compute cycles.