Hijackware


ethical: conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct -- Merriam-Webster OnLine: Collegiate Dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.htm 2001. (17 August 2001).I swear, inter...
ethical: conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct -- Merriam-Webster OnLine: Collegiate Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.htm 2001.
(17 August 2001).I swear, internet marketing companies are getting more obnoxious andunethical every day. I guess it was just naive to thing the banner ad risento it's highest heights of stupidity with the "punch the money" banner.
AndI don't know about you, but I didn't really believe the marketers could getany lower on the scum scale than the exit windows that run away from thecursor so they are more difficult to close.Well, I was wrong and I admit I was incredibly naive.The marketers have come up with some incredibly unethical, horribly annoyinggimmicks. The dirty tricks they are pulling now make exit windows look likechild's play.
In fact, the games these boys are playing makes the marketingmethods of the scummiest adult web sites look downright professional incomparison.The trend seems to have started a few years ago with a handy little utilitycalled Gator. This "tool" professed to offer a great benefit to surfers -the ability to remember the contents of forms and password entry screens.Further, since Gator is actually pretty good at recognizing that a pagecontains a known form or password entry field, it is indeed very useful.
Iinstalled the program for a while and found it to be a wonderful complementto my surfing.True, it did have this annoying habit of throwing a "coupon" up on my screenoccasionally. I didn't think much about it at all - I just closed the couponas quick as I could.
This phenomenon didn't happen very often - in fact, atfirst I had difficulty figuring out what was actually causing it to occur. Inaturally assumed this was a feature of the web site that I was visiting.However, the coupons slowly became more and more common, and they beganappearing at the worst possible times.
They interfered with my shopping andsurfing habits by breaking my train of concentration and thought.I began to try and understand this strange phenomenon. I quickly realizedthis was a byproduct of Gator - and I soon understood that the utility wassimply "bait" to get people to install an insidious, almost evil,advertising machine on their systems.
In fact, the program is so obnoxiousand so unethical that I truly believe no sane person would install it, nomatter what the benefit, if they completely understood what was going on.Gator (and other similar, but less popular products) is something called a"Browser Helper Object". What this means is it is a small program whichmakes itself known to Internet Explorer, telling IE that to send informationto Gator about the web pages that are being loaded into the browser.
It'sthe job of a Browser Helper Object to extend the capabilities of the browserin a useful way. In the case of Gator, the usefulness is to recognize formsand password entry fields so default values can be inserted.In addition, Gator wants to know what kinds of advertisements are appearingon the pages that are being loaded.
It also wants to see if the page'ssubject is related to a product which one of it's paid advertisers ishawking. This is it's real purpose.
The convenience is just a smoke screen.Let's say you are surfing to your favorite shopping site and you want toorder some flowers. You proceed to the flower shop and suddenly a "coupon"magically appears in front of you, offering you flowers elsewhere,presumably better or at a lower cost.Okay, let's put this in real world terms so you can understand what's reallygoing on.
Let's pretend you are at the mall, going from shop to shop. Thereis this guy (let's call him Benedict) standing behind you with a notebookand pen in his hand.
He has a bag of flyers hanging from one shoulder and amoney counting machine on the other.As you go from store to store Benedict watches your every move (by the way,he has a radio and reports everything you do back to his home office whereit is permanently recorded). You go into a clothing store and pick up a pairof jeans.
Suddenly a flyer appears under your nose, informing you there arecheaper, better jeans in a shop down the road. You look Benedict and hesmiles nicely at you.
You push the flyer out of the way and keep shopping.Now you go into a candy store and walk up to the counter to order somechocolate. Again, a flyer appears in front of your face offering youchocolate at discount prices in a competing store.
You push the flyer out ofthe way and pick out some chocolate that you want to purchase. Benedictpulls out his money counting machine, takes your wallet, counts the money,hands it to the cashier, and returns your wallet.
This, by the way, is the"benefit" that makes it useful to have Benedict around.I'll bet it wouldn't take long before you either called the cops or punchedBenedict in the nose! And, of course, the store operators would make sureBenedict was arrested and thrown in jail, and they would sue the company forsure.Well, guess what, it's gotten worse and more unethical, as hard as that isto believe.According to reports, Gator is now working on a version which not onlythrows coupons in front of your face, it actually finds banners ads andcovers them up with other advertisements so carefully and precisely that youwould never know the original ad was there.Now Benedict runs ahead of you as you shop and replaces all of the signswith advertisements for other stores. If you walked through our hypotheticalmall and peaked under that ad for a movie, you might find there is actuallyan ad for an entirely different movie there.
The billboard might actually beadvertising something totally different. In fact, the signs in the storesthemselves could be replaced with signs directing you to other stores.Is this legal?Well, Gator's terms and conditions do tell you they are going to do this.And you are supposed to read them (all gazillion pages) before you downloadthe program.
And of course, the terms and conditions are written in such auser friendly and simple way that you would certainly have no troublecompletely understanding and agreeing to their tactics. (Sarcasmintentional).I'm sure Gator would also argue that web sites do not own the user'sdesktops.
And after all, the users did agree to the terms and conditions byinstalling Gator, so they must want this "service", right?I must admit I am just as guilty as everyone else, when it comes to readingterms and conditions. I mean, I just downloaded the silly thing andinstalled it.
I did what everyone else does - I clicked through the termsand conditions without a glance. For all I know, I could have signed away mysoul.This is a lesson we all have to learn - by clicking through the terms andconditions we AGREE to them.
By installing a program, we AGREE to the termsand conditions. Since the ONLY WAY to install the program is to clickthrough the screen containing the terms and conditions and clicking a buttonthat says, "yes I read this and I understand that my soul now belongs to youand I am happy with it", well, the companies are covered.
Oh yes, and yoursoul is toast.Are programs such as this ethical?No. Not by any definition of the word.
This is unethical in terms that theadult web sites have not even come close to. Programs like Gator areproduced by the lowest form of pond scum - scum which is so dirty and filthythat even normal scum does not want to be associated with it.
In fact, ifthis pond scum enters a pond, all of the other scum will go to a differentpond in a different country just so as not to sully their own names any morethan they already have.What should we do about it?First, we all need to start reading terms and conditions. The web is basedupon these poorly written, conniving and often one-sided documents.
We mustALL begin to read them, understand them, and if we don't agree to them, thenwe must not install the program or use the service.Second, do as I have done. If you have any Spyware (programs which reportyour information back to the home office) or Hijackware (programs likeGator), uninstall it immediately without any delay.
Download Ad-Aware, runit and follow the directions. This will allow you to safely remove all ofthis junk from your system fast.Third, if you find out that advertisers are using Hijackware, then refuse topurchase their products.
Be sure and send them an email to let them know whyyou are doing so. Be polite and direct.Forth, if you like the Hijackware's functions but do not want to experienceit's side effects, then look for an alternative.
There are plenty ofprograms out there that can do what you want without being so unethical,obnoxious and downright, well, evil about it.My final advice. Just say no.
It's simple and it's easy. Don't use thesekinds of programs and don't purchase from companies who use them.
This isthe only way that we will force this kind of scum out of business.Additional InformationAd Blockinghttp://www.internet-tips.net/Security/adblocking.htmBanner ads are everywhere, and they take up valuable bandwidth. In addition,they are ugly and distracting.
Here's how to remove them.Browser Helper Objectshttp://www.internet-tips.net/Browsers/bho.htmIs your system crashing? Perhaps you've unknowingly done what I did - addeda Browser Helper Object.Products - Ad-Awarehttp://www.internet-tips.net/Products/adaware.htmWant to remove spyware from your system? Ad-Aware is a quick and simpleproduct which will help you do that safely.Products - AdSubtract Prohttp://www.internet-tips.net/Products/adsubtract.htmYou want to eliminate banner ads and web bugs? AdSubtract Pro does anexcellent job.Products - Cookie Palhttp://www.internet-tips.net/Products/cookiepal.htmNeed to manage cookies as you surf the internet? Then you will not find abetter program than Cookie Pal.Tanstaaf - Spywarehttp://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl/spyware.htmBe careful installing ad supported products - you may find that you everymove on the internet is being watched!Tanstaafl - Spyware - Alexahttp://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl/spyware_alexa.htmAlexa is one of the more flagrant spyware products. My advice is to avoid itlike the plague.Tanstaafl - Junohttp://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl anstaafl_juno.htmJuno wants to turn your computer into a module of it's own supercomputer.
Doyou really want to let them?Web Bugshttp://www.internet-tips.net/Security/webbugs.htmWeb bugs are little graphic images inserted into web pages, emails and otherweb-aware documents to allow companies to gather information about youwithout your knowledge.Web Bugs Are Crawling Everywherehttp://www.internet-tips.net/Security/webbugs_growing.htmYou've heard about web bugs. They are little things designed to track yourmovements.
Watch out - they are exploding all over the internet. Article Tags: Password Entry Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com .

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