Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
istartedsomething.com
istartedsomething.com
They are liars, shady business, IP violators and are downright dangerous.
They have all those great offers for you, but they refuse to give any details as soon as you ask any question. More than half of them are "the biggest in the world" (sic). They lie about download numbers, about download size, about number of software actually installed and about their connexions. They even lie on the actual payback price.
If you refuse, they build special websites, copying yours, with your IP and trademark and register adwords with your name, in every way possible.
They also resell their solutions/websites to other people, using "Affiliate networks", so that once you take one down, 20 appear. And the guy who you took down had no idea who you were or what the software was...
They also have deals with download.com/softopedia/softonic to change/rewrap your installer, without your agreement, often violating your license; or they give back money to those websites, so they are ranked higher than normal other downloads.
And of course, open source software are never respected.
I believe OP is very polite: There are no good reasons to not shame them publicly.
I can confirm this, it's the reason we stopped having a download altogether even though it offered features that were hard to do without a download.
Using software I wrote as a vector to spread malware is really beyond the pale.
Even worse to realize that reputable companies such as Google, Ask and McAfee compensate them for doing it. [2][3]
[1] http://i.imgur.com/3zWPK.jpg
If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories.
Nothing. In case you haven't been paying attention, Debian repositories were "app stores" before there were app stores. The software goes through extensive vetting and rigorous testing; no, I'm not saying every line of code is inspected, but to claim that a Debian maintainer would just blithely let crapware in is ignorant.
As for the walled gardens of Google and Apple, people are objecting to precisely that: the locked in, tinker-hostile way that the platform (not the app store) is managed. It's great that Google and Apple have finally seen the light and started curating software and making it easy to install, like it's been in Debian for nearly two decades. What's not great is telling people what they are and are not allowed to do with their property by anti-competitively denying the right the to install third party apps.
You would get plenty of shady sites encouraging you to add another line to /etc/apt/sources.list for cool free screensavers, but it would be a lot more practical than it is in windows to tell people to ignore them and never install anything that doesn't come with the system.
There are a ton of good people who work to keep those repos clean. Lets not trivialize their contribution by acting like anyone and their mother can make changes to the repo for a popular distro. Sure, a black[/grey] hat can make their own repository, but who in their right mind will use it?
It's not third-party ads, it's first-party ads, which is slightly better.
Like OP, I have a lot of sympathy for software developers trying to sell in a world full of people who don't think they should pay any dollars for software. They are still gonna pay, just in terms of their privacy and computer security.
You must've forgotten Path fiasco, with its quiet uploading of user's full address book to company's servers, which turned out to be - SUR-PRI-SE - a "standard industry practice". Wall garden sanctuary my ass. Same rotten ethics, except far less visible.
A risk might be drive-by malware that adds stuff to /etc/apt/sources.list though, however to do this you would need drive-by malware that can bust into the root account, or to get the user to enter the admin password.
When I was reading the original TC article, I was thinking that there is actually an incredible opportunity here to create a legitimate ad network that would allow desktop developers to monetize similarly to how it's done on the web - to basically become the DoubleClick of the desktop world.
Why should ad supported desktop apps be any different than ad supported mobile or web apps?
Edit: These downvotes are pretty surprising, I didn't realize I was even being controversial. Can someone explain why creating a legitimate, privacy-respecting ad platform which allows desktop developers to monetize their applications in a manner that's almost exactly the same as ad supported web and mobile apps is that awful?
I'm not even saying that's necessarily what they're up to, I can just see where there's a tremendous opportunity to try and clean up the industry, and how, based on the people involved, the author and the commenter above could very easily be jumping to the wrong conclusions.
One of the key words here is "toolbar." It's in the same class as "HIV," "ebola," "herpes simplex virus," etc. Saying you're bundling third-party adware such as toolbars and "browser helpers" and similar is like saying you're purposefully giving someone a disease.
IT professionals managing Windows networks spend god-awful amounts of time removing such junk from Windows PCs. Not only do things like this invade privacy, they often slow down and break peoples' computers.
Tracking IP and even MAC addresses? Hello? Spyware is spyware.
Also: ads are ads. If your product does nothing respectable (as opposed to selling eyeballs to advertisers under false pretenses) that is worth paying for it to anyone, that's bad luck. It doesn't justify deliberately and systematically messing with the rational decision making process of people, and that others are already doing that is no justification either, nor that they have been doing it for so long.
Worse yet, even the low level of sandboxing that desktops posses are almost always defeated by installers: "This installer requires administrator privileges to run"
... aka. yes, you will take our spyware-crapware-rubbish, and you'll love it, or you wont use our app. Capish?
You don't get that with websites. That's why it's ok.
(Incidentally, this is the same reason why its not ok on mobile platforms, where your options of permission are to read your contacts and make phone calls and 'services that cost money' or no, you can't play this game of Cat Pong your friends are talking about...)
Here, you are coming off as a sycophant who is blindly supporting PG and YC without checking your facts which could be the reason for your downvotes.
So now I specifically instruct them to go to videolan.org.
Ads may distort this for some users, though...
"You have installed VLC, it should have come without any additional software such as tool bars or file compressors. If this was not your case, you probably installed it from a third party that arbitrarily and without our consent added external programs. We recommend you to install VLC from videolan.org, etc."
That way, casual users will at least be aware of the external installs problem.
And the really unfortunate thing is that a few big bad apples can and did ruin it for everyone else. I don't have time to figure out who is going to install shit on my system vs who isn't, so I just assume everything is bad and avoid it all, with the exception of a handful of known-good products (like VLC) from known-good sources (the author's own websites).
The end result is an ecosystem in which new useful tools (even ones that aren't malware peddlers) now have a near-impossible time creating a critical mass of users, so any money to be made in that market can only come from these terrible spammy practices, which is just sad.
http://blog.l0cal.com/2011/07/07/these-companies-that-mislea...
The problem here is that those sites still rank very high in search results.
Also, good luck with your Windows 8 project!
This is completely prejudice! You've never met Install Monetizer, and don't know if they participate in the same activities as the companies that you're referring to.
"I believe OP is very polite: There are no good reasons to not shame them publicly."
This is childish, and I'd expect better from any contributing member of VLC.
I never mentionned IM.
Also, see the comment from patio11 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5060399
So I thought I'd try, you know, installing something.
Make your own call:
http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/its-not-a...
Sounds like very bad news:
I don't know how since I always check for crapware, but I ended up with babylon having taken over my firefox browser. I removed it, but - just checking - oh look, there it is again.
Luckily, chrome is my go-to browser, (which explains why I haven't tried more brutal removals), but it is definitely not as simple as uninstalling.
It seems to be worse than I thought. http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/938607
The wording on that choice is incredible too.
Some folks mentioned that this could be misleading, so to clarify: my research methodology, to the extent it can be called that, was a) open up the IM website, b) take a look at their advertiser partner wall (they don't have a developer partner wall, so I wasn't able to view the end-user experience directly), c) Google the first name that popped out: [babylon translation software], d) clicked the first link and downloaded, e) clicked past the first screen, which let me override my system default of Japanese such that y'all would be able to read the rest of the installer, where industry experience suggested to me that the action would be.
Sorry if I gave folks the impression that this was the InstallMonetizer application -- the impression I was trying to leave was "This is the core line of business for one of their marquis advertisers."
I should probably start doing more of that other kind of hacking.
Not this time, though...
And those users will love this new attack vector backed by some of the most respected folk in Silicon Valley.
http://www.installmonetizer.com/
Maybe they "pivoted" from a clever take on ad campaign management to toolbars as a way to increase revenues?
Things like it and Conduit (another toolbar/malware company) are probably the biggest "botnets" out there, all "legal".
Why do you think they would have a different angle if they are a YC company?
It's like finding that someone has got through the YC selection process based on a business model which involves putting "sex, horny, porn" in the title of each page on their website.
I'm not a fan regardless, but I just wanted to make sure we're getting the right picture here. I came away from your comment believing this was a screen from their (InstallMonetizer's) actual installer, and I think everyone else did too. However, after reading pg's comment below, I'm no longer so sure that is the case.
Can you please clarify?
But yeah, these people really chose to do evil, in a shady business. Why? Why not start the next scientology, that would make them more money.
Seriously, stay away!
Basically we automate multiple installers and decline toolbars just like you would.
Users range from the nontechnical to NASA. We even have a huge blind user base because these installers are frequently hell to navigate with a screenreader.
We make money selling a Pro version with extra features to businesses and school IT departments. It works well and aligns us nicely with our users' interests.
Ninite is more like pasteurization.
The problem is deceptive software. That we're funded by YC (or that InstallMonetizer is) is a red herring. But it sure does get some clicks!
On a perfect version of HN the top comments would be about solving the problems in posts, not elaborating on them.
Not to dump on HN though. This is a bug in human nature.
Glad to hear you like Ninite and that we saved you time, thanks for using it!
Not sure if this was your point, but I assume that you are using a lot of MSI and Windows API hooks, in which case this is a great example of the flexibility and integration options of Windows being leveraged for the good, as opposed to the crapware blight, which must be as frustrating for Microsoft as it is for us.
It does make for a noisier and more confusing ecosystem though. My mom's still better off using an iPad.
Thanks for using Ninite Pro!
Upon first reading, it sounded like "to junk like ninite"
Great stuff!
So even on a platform that's opened up to applications, the threat of crapware can create a business case for a curated third-party app store :-)
Let me install an older version of uTorrent.
Let me install Steam in another location, not default.
Current ninite installs all I need except those two.
Could you please elaborate how exactly do you automate the installers? Do you modify the applications being installed?
Thanks for using Ninite!
FWIW, the install window Patrick overlaid on top of InstallMonetizer's site in that screenshot is not actually InstallMonetizer.
In the end, we don't have much information about what IM adds to installers--I suppose they don't want it too well known. We'd need to find an app that uses their installer to get a screenshot of it. Their website does give us some clues: one image shows an offer that is made to look like a license agreement, thus duping people into clicking Agree. Another clue is how they repeat that they "manage all optimization and conversion to ensure highest earnings," which I take to mean their wording and choices are designed to trick people into installing items they didn't ask for.
PS: installmonetizer.com website is down for now
Norton is well known to have a preinstalled version in new computers that it's almost impossible to uninstall. I don't have a screenshot, but there is one in these articles: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/can-microsoft-cure-pc-makers-... http://hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?articleid=1731
(Perhaps the version that they install trough InstallMonetizer is more user friendly, but I'm at least a little afraid to try it.)
Deleted comment
A few days ago I wanted to install the Partition Magic trial on my Win XP VM. Having left Windows around 2005 I figured that typing "Partition Magic Win XP download" in Google would be helpful.
I got a handful of "reputable" download sources like CNet and the like. I went there and was bombarded by 20 (dramatization) different download buttons. I clicked the one that seemed most promising and somehow ended with a new Zip-Archiver installed ...
So I went back and found the Partition Magic installer. It was an installer with 'added value' that asked me three times to install some toolbar crap. I ended up with one of those toolbars installed because unchecking the box and clicking on 'next' obviously is not enough. You have to click the decline button instead of next.
Now I would consider myself computer literate and yet still I didn't manage to install a simple utility without littering my system with crapware. I can only imagine what hell the internet must be like to inexperienced (read: normal people) Windows users.
Even when installing legit software from what appeared to be legit sources I had to be very careful at every step in order to avoid all the spyware/toolbars/dubious extensions bundled with the installers.
The worst offender was some crapware installer that wanted you to check the components you didn't wan't installed. I almost got tricked. Next thing I'm sure they'll ask you "Are you not sure you don't want those components not installed?" [Yes] [Ok].
I may be wrong but I believe even the official Oracle Java updater asks to install some toolbar (Ask or yahoo I think? Or maybe just set the homepage? I forgot). Good thing I don't think very highly of Oracle or I might have been disappointed.
Edit: I remembered correctly: https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=10723...
We can see the origins of this becoming a problem on Ubuntu with Canonical adding stuff like the Amazon search and seemingly having no issue with bundleware as a means of monetisation.
On the other hand I'm surprised this isn't more of an issue on the Mac, since Mac (especially older versions) will allow installation of software from random sources which could include bundleware.
Is there something about OS X that makes bundleware more difficult to develop or is it just easier to monetise an OS X app without bundleware?
$ sudo apt-get install emacs
After this operation, 86.3 MB of additional disk
space will be used and AVG Toolbar Pro! GOLD EDITION
will be installed to Chromium
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?Or an older version from Ubuntu.
Really, this is a non-issue on Linux, because either 1) someone will just "fix" it an release their alternative, or 2) everyone will just stop using the offender.
#2 assumes a savvy enough userbase.
If you're packaging something as a deb, you can potentially bundle other things, but at the same time, because a deb is a glorified tar.gz, someone can just provide information on how to get rid of the offending thing.
Or, if you're using Arch, the AUR maintainer just adjusts the PKGBUILD to do it for you.
It's not particularly hard.
And sure, having people install a different package manager requires a savvy enough userbase, to an extent. If they can copy and paste a couple commands into the terminal, they can change it (wget [somefile] && dpkg -i [somefile]). How hard.
"Yes" & "No, I do not not want to install this"?
Now, the question is why this has not happened for Mac Software, at least not on that scale. Gruber (2004) claims it is due to zero tolerance (http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows).
I think that is partly true, and it sort-of started with the original PC. Installing a DOS program such as Lotus123 was a nightmare, where people had to answer such question as "number of lines on a page" and "how does your printer do bold" to configure a printer. Installing hardware, similarly, was a nightmare (what IRQ should we use? Do you have extended or expanded memory? etc).
Windows on the other hand has no community and is kind of an multi-cultural wasteland where everything goes thus will tolerate more BS.
Not sure I agree with Gruber's conclusion though, if Mac had a large uptake in market share then that community would become diluted.
As it stands the random Grandma that uses a Mac without understanding computers gets a sort of herd immunity because there is a larger percentage of more nerdy and vocal users who won't tolerate BS.
If grandmas become the overwhelming majority of Mac users they lose some of that because the crapware vendors know that grandma is very unlikely to read the blogposts condemning their software.
The iOS and Android app stores are full of crapware. Yes, that crapware does not have all the features of it's counterpart in the Windows ecosystem. Yet, much of it provides little value or functionality and even functional applications collect vast amounts of data not necessary for that functionality.
HOWEVER, Mac OS X has never had this problem, and before the app store there was nothing inherently harder about writing crapware that bundles whatever creepy garbage could be monetized.
So actually I really wonder why OS X and Linux never had this problem (to any major extent). Is it merely the awesomeness of single-digit market share? In that case, Ubuntu's safe but Apple better start worrying about it.
Personally I suspect it's more complicated than that, but my ideas are half-baked.
For things that require changing system components, other apps etc. there is a normal install wizard.
I wish other operating systems did it that way. It's very convenient.
Some apps however come with an installer, but that's for apps that do more (e.g. need to install drivers, etc.). However, it's Apple's own installer which I think is provided by Xcode. So, no way to mess with it and install crappy things.
MacOS apps very rarely have an installer, so there's little opportunity to install this sort of thing.
Hmm, Monetizer.framework?
It was just too easy to me even as a relatively experienced user to knee-jerk click the "Allow" button.
I presume that people using Macs tend to be 1) wary of downloading any programs from random websites and 2) wary of having to run something like an installer. The Mac App Store means that people will only do these things less going forward.
If only. Last time I did a "check up" on my sister's macbook she had managed to install a toolbar and some other evil shitware that would hijack her google searches to collect her info and redirect her to bing.
Now tell me where you are supposed to click to download the actual application. It confuses me, and I'm an experienced user who knows to look out for these sorts of things. I have no idea how normal people ever find the damn thing.
My question is: whose fault is this? Is it Paint.NET's, for allowing the ads onto their site? Or is it the ad network's (Google, in this case), for accepting the ads into their network?
Google should not allow ANY ads that contain a Download button, when the page has a link containing the text "Download." These ads can have no other purpose but to confuse users who are looking to download software. The problem is that Google makes money from these ads, and these ads have fantastic clickthrough rates. If they banned these types of ads, they'd make less money.
The author of Paint.NET is making good money every time a user mistakenly clicks on such an ad. This money also reduces his incentive to get rid of the confusing ad.
I get around this problem by running an ad-blocker, so I only see the one legitimate download link. But most users do not.
This is how industries get regulated -- when they refuse to regulate themselves. I hope Google realizes that and takes action on their own initiative...
"You may not modify, adapt, rent, lease, loan, sell, or create derivative works based upon the Software or any part thereof."
I did find this, but I've never used it: http://code.google.com/p/openpdn/
The best rule of thumb is: if it looks shady, don't go there ever again. Another: every good program has an author, and this author has a valid, non-malware-installing link on his/her website.
For me blocking advertisements online is no longer about blacklisting bad sites, but whitelisting the few good ones I want to support.
They'll probably make a one by one pixel link that links to the clean download file.
You'd probably have to have a button to toggle this on and off.
The download link for the actual product will often really be a redirect to a page with a "your download will start in 5 seconds" and then some JS triggers the actual download.
Even the legit download will usually offer you toolbars and crap anyway.
- Fedora 17 with Gnome. Out of the box it offers all kinds of installation options, like the one I always wanted and only found in Fedora (in my words): "Use all this but only this free space, and also encrypt it". The only downside is that out of the box it lacks some things every desktop user will want, like media codecs, but can be installed very easily. There are also tons of addons for Gnome that you will want to improve the UI (eg: get back the minimize button -.-), you can get them at extensions.gnome.org.
- Ubuntu 12.04 server edition. I chose server edition because it has an option for disk encryption, but it will use the entire disk, which sucks unless you have two disks like I do. Then you install 'ubuntu-desktop' and you are done. There is also a problem with both server and desktop edition when installing into some HDD's, they fail to align correctly for different block sizes. Other than that, this is the perfect distro for me. It is LTS so it will be supported for 5 years, and I hope that by that time they have rolled back the crap that they added to 12.10.
- Fedora 18. It should be released today, let's see what they got.
Ubuntu 12.10 has options for disk and home folder encryption in the regular, GUI, desktop installer.
I also don't hate Gnome 3. It's a bit immature, but it's pretty and fairly easy to use and stable.
For example, with Unity I was able to start using Virtualbox VM's maximized instead of full screen, which is so much more comfortable. The host has the sidebar hidden (shows on hover), and the guest has it always visible (as hover wouldn't work for a guest). It really makes a great use of the visual space.
Windows XP is more than a decade old. The latest release, nearly five.
To generalize about the current state of Windows based upon recent experience with Windows XP is either ignorant, disingenuous, or blindly biased.
Of course, another stripe of deluded individual might blame Microsoft for the abundance of crapware on the internet.
http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/partition-magic-windo...
Your research, poor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PartitionMagic
And your characterization of the Windows ecosystem based upon your experience either ignorant, disingenuous, or blindly biased.
Sure, that wikipedia article doesn't include installers that aren't the official one. But finding the official one can sometimes be a ridiculously daunting task.
And sure, Windows 8 has an app store now. So what? I can still install applications outside of it.
Further, AFAIK his SocialCam is worth tons of money as well, mostly thanks to Facebook overspamming practices [3]
Truly surprised PG is not full time in spam business; he would make triple killing! :)
HN moderators: its OK to downvote if the truth feels uncomfortable to you.
EDIT: Since this is getting strongly upvoted; here are the links:
[1] http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-airbnbs-c...
[2] http://www.tnooz.com/2011/06/01/news/airbnb-admits-rogue-sal...
[3] http://www.pcmike.com/what-im-thinkin/beware-of-socialcam
Irony? Or just people being willing to do anything for money. There are worse motivations.
“We gather personally identifiable and may include information regarding your geo-location, ip address, operating system, language setting and information regarding whether recommended advertiser software has been accepted, downloaded, installed and any reason for failure installing. None of his information is personally identifiable.”
If you feel you're entitled to more money, make me pay more for your product. Ask me to donate. Strip away features unless I go 'pro'.
But never ever install crap that isn't even related to your product.
Rule of thumb: If you wouldn't install that software on your families (like, the wider network - parents, siblings, grandparents) machines while supporting them, don't install it on MY machine either.
Except those people probably would do that.
In Linux it's easier to install something that in Windows.
E.g. to install a CD to MP3 rip program, in Archlinux all you do is:
# Search for some mp3 ripper program
pacman -Ss mp3 | grep rip
# Install one of them from the list that looked ok from the description
pacman -S ripperx
Search the internet for rip mp3
Go through hundreds of spammy results
Try to identify one that isn't crapware
Download its installer
Run its installer
Be careful at every page of the installer that it isn't installing crap
0. How to load your terminal program
1. The command line
2. Permissions/root
3. Package managers in general
4. pacman in particular (what, it's not the game?)
5. Command line switches
6. Piping
7. grep
8. What "looks OK" means in a Linux package description
Under Windows, you need to know:
1. A browser
2. A search engine
3. A feel for trustworthiness
1) What an "installer" is
2) Where on the filesystem it goes when it's downloaded
3) How to navigate to that location in Explorer
4) That double-clicking the installer runs it
etc.
Some of these are things that you can learn from general Windows usage, but then the same could be said of several of the points you listed under Linux. And there are alternate approaches to installing software in Linux (like Ubuntu's Software Center) that remove the command-line, piping, grep, etc.
From my point of view, your comment describes exactly why Windows is easier. In the Linux example you're using the command line with commands folks don't know about ('pacman', 'grep') with flags they'd have to read about ('-S' and "How do you make that vertical line thing?"). Of course they'd also have to understand the output of those commands.
The Windows example is largely point and click (using tools people are already familiar with, e.g google, web-browsers etc)
It's just that experienced users tend to find the command line versions quicker and easier.
I also know someone who is not good with computers at all, but has used DOS before using Windows. She could do just as much in DOS as in Windows, even thought DOS did involve the command line (and lots of word perfect).
So if you simply have a printout saying what the command to install something in Linux is, and another printout saying what to click on in Windows to install something, I think that conceptually the Linux one will be slightly simpler.
Same also with tech support!
In Linux, tech support goes like this: "Please run this command and give me the output". "Now run that command" ok, problem fixed.
In Windows it's "click here. do you see that now? Now click that. No, I mean THAT. Do you see a button at the bottom? Yes, that one! Click it. etc....".
And finally, if we're gonna be talking to computers in the future, talking is more like a command line interface than a GUI, and despite that is more natural.
Sure, as long as it's in your distro, and it's the version you want, and you haven't installed anything else that might interact with it from another source. But if any of those three statements is not true, best to start praying to whatever deities you believe in for one of them to help you, because chances are no-one else is going to.
The thing that really amazes me is that it's 2013, there are billions of computer-using people in the world running on only a tiny handful of major operating system flavours, the collective loss due to junkware or outright malware is staggering in both economic and quality of life terms, and still none of those operating systems has yet adopted a basic security model that jails applications so by default they can only ever install code, update settings and manipulate documents of their own type.
I appreciate that, as Microsoft learned with Windows Vista, overly aggressive access control/user prompting can be counter-productive. Still, many of the behaviours that make user-hostile undesirable shouldn't even be possible at the OS level, and certainly not by default.
Some programs also have features which add functionality to other applications. Sometimes this can be useful , in cases such as lastpass and dropbox but other times they can be bad in cases such as spyware.
Installation of crapware has nothing to do with ease of installation, you've just purposefully made it seem drawn out. You could've just said Google "CD to MP3" and a few results down is a "how to" guide that uses the open-source CDex program - with a step by step guide.
When I am on the command line and I type a command that is not installed, I get: jef@sweethome ~ $ 7z The program '7z' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: sudo apt-get install p7zip-full
I just need to do copy paste and type in my password.
Sometimes, the software is not in the repository (for example xbmc), but the commands to type, or the installer to launch are clearly indicated on the site.
I was a windows user, software installation (and removal) is a lot easier now.
I'm less than half kidding. This is real destructive harm, so it's closer to the intent of the laws. The incredible churn rate is a pretty clear indication that end users dont want the software being installed. And here we have hundreds of thousands of systems compromised.
Selective enforcement of draconian laws is scary, really.
Now in the past they will either try to sell you something or get you to fill in a CPA offer. Now 2012 has hit the IM/Internet Marketing industry hard mainly because people aren't spending money as much as they used to. Like I mentioned in another comment, basically the whole CPA industry is going belly up and will continue to do so in 2013.
So how do these guys make money? Well I know the biggest craze is to make toolbars that actually control your Facebook/Twitter/Email accounts. I've already seen one made for chrome and the guy had put a whosamungus tracking code in there that had over 10k people online at the time I checked it.
The toolbar was capable of sending mass private messages, posting on your wall and inviting all your friends to events on Facebook. And the problem is, it's pretty tough for Facebook to block this since it looks legitimate as the actions are directly coming from the browser and not a shady 3rd party site.
Another tactic which is more common is to replace websites advertising code with their own. This means replacing Adsense ID's or completely changing the banner code all together. This is what Kim Dotcom will be doing when he launches his new Mega site this week.
They also alter Google results so they can either promote their own sites or sell traffic to advertisers for profit.
So to think they are 'only' tracking your IP/Mac address, think again...
Or they will sell the data they have harvested such as your personal details (email/full name/date of birth/location) to a 3rd party.
Plus there are photos of them at YC with their company logo above - they clearly did not pivot.
We (f.lux) have a similar experience to VLC: tons of cloned installers and inbound emails for a free product.
Rather than a conspiracy, however, I suspect it is more likely just a case where YC doesn't give a fuck about further degrading the Windows ecosystem.
Next time someone complains here on HN about Microsoft's malfeasance in locking down Windows RT, remind them that they have enterprise customers who don't want to deal with shit like this.
As of now, not 1 of my friends promoting CPA offers is making money, they've either got themselves a 9-5 or just chewing through their savings.
Working to destroy his own platform. Classy.
He's not working on real products.
Software I accidentally install, or am offered to install always leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth and reflects badly on the software I am originally trying to install.
How is this business model of spying on your users different from Google's or Facebook's?
That is, "in the good old days", facebook or google really only tracked what you did, on facebook or google, while crapware could track everything you did on the computer.
Now, of course, as more and more of our lives are based around our browsers, and google and facebook track more of what you do anywhere on the web, not just on their sites, so I suppose it's not that different.
Business-to-business services that are disliked by the public and involve any type of tracking or analytics aren't just class-action-lawsuit bait, they're ambitious-prosecutor bait. All they need is enough bad PR, which it looks like they're in the process of getting, to make the predators aware of the prey.
Judging from reactions here, they're not going to get much community support when the legal backlash inevitably happens, either.
From an ethical standpoint, better the devil you know? Windows freeware developers deserve some compensation for their work, and this seems less scuzzy than other drive-by downloaders. If it became widespread it might break out of the user-exploitation ghetto and pick up real, actually synergistic software to intelligently recommend.
So, they have a business plan, good for them. But it doesn't make them any less scammy, nor does it make it any less disappointing to see YC funding people with the same ethics as your average patent troll.
Hmm. I've actually heard of dumber ideas than that. Dog owners would prefer not to board their pets with commercial kennels, because you always get your dog back with some bug or another. A service that hooks up vacationing dog owners with local families who agree to take care of small numbers of other peoples' dogs might make some sense.
I can't count how often I clicked 'no' when some installer tried to install Bing toolbar or Google Chrome.
Chrome is/was offered as crapware in the Flash or Adobe Reader installer!!!
But leaving spoor behind in the form of toolbars is beyond the pale.
Toolbars? Really?
There's also conduit:
Sadly, on Windows even Oracle's Java has the ASK toolbar.
Almost nobody has any pride left on the Windows-platform, user-abuse is rampant, almost expected. It's killing the platform and there's nothing Microsoft can do about it.
I then sat for a minute, couldn't think of anything I'd done in the last several months that needed Java, and uninstalled it. I haven't missed it.
They should simply ban any adware on Windows that is opt-out rather than opt-in. If anyone breaks that rule, they should put it in the anti-virus signature database for Microsoft Security Essentials, so it cannot be installed without the user going through hoops.
They should then go to the DOJ or the EU, say, "We want to clean up the user experience," back it up with articles from Mac-lovers like Walt Mossberg talking about how bad the crapware experience is on Windows, printouts of forums like this one showing nearly-universal hatred of these practices, etc.
And if the DOJ or EU say "No, we'll slap antitrust fines on you if you do that," then they should publish all of the correspondence publicly, and harness the waves of Internet fury to compel the regulators to back down. Even if the regulators don't back down, they'll get good publicity from actually taking responsibility for their platform and trying to clean it up.
P.S. The Bing toolbar doesn't help Microsoft's case. They should "take one for the user" and voluntarily eliminate the Bing toolbar. If they succeed in getting rid of all toolbars, then maybe they'll actually get more traffic to Bing, because users won't have their search engines hijacked.
They could have made a real Windows Store instead of a WinRT-only store.
I'm not sure if that's changed in the meantime, but I recall it being a refreshing change from every other system which defaulted to automatically installing additional software rather than the user specifically having to choose to opt-in.
Is it (the lack of) education among users? I find it curious that when compared to financial products, where improving financial education is often brought up as a solution, there's a lot less mention of education when it comes to cases like these. Sadly this kind of "don't fall for these scams" computing education is not very transferrable to more productive uses of computing.
In a free market, if users stop falling for this crap (admittedly a tall order on Windows) then the scammers will naturally go out of business.
That correction can come in the form of greater mainstream cultural impetus for computer literacy training, for operating system developerrs to prevent these types of actions (app stores of all platforms are decent at this), or by creating/expanding a market for products that intercept and neutralize this type of exploitation.
The more efficient the means of exploiting computer illiteracy, the sooner the exploit is, in some way, neutralized.
It's great to bring it to his attention, but these dudes are the ones building the spam engine, PG was just one of many investors in the company. We can't know how much of this he knew beforehand, but he says he's investigating, which isn't even the point. I'm sure PG was keen on investigating this without everyone pointing fingers at him like he made the decision to create this spamware.
I don't want to hate on YC, I was just very surprised to hear they'd invested in this company, and I'm interested to hear what their reasons were.
And once Google/etc. one day has everyone's credit card info and charges us more often, I could totally see items starting to be added ala Vistaprint (if you've used Vistaprint you almost certainly know what I'm talking about) like magazine trial subscriptions, etc.
The more the economy sinks and people are less willing to spend, the more crap will get dumped on us. Fact of life.
All I see is a business model that on top of being reprehensible, is completely out of whack with the times, and even if successful promises to cannibalize itself out of existence by destroying any remnant of faith that Windows user still have in the Wild West of freely downloadable native Windows apps.
Please, let not today be remembered as the day that YC jumped the shark.
worse though is that this kind of stuff has ever been tolerated. its obviously shady... tricky adverts and sneaky buttons should be just as illegal as any other con or fraud. then they would not exist.
If they can improve upon that experience somehow:
- Reviewing the software before allowing it to be bundled and weeding out the bad eggs.
- Adding user reviews inline with the list of software to install.
...then there's a possibility that they can make this a pleasant, legitimate experience for people.
Just because some behaviour is acceptable to "InstallMonetizer" does not mean it will necessarily be acceptable to me.
Besides if they are seeking to maximise revenues for investors there will always be that incentive to find ways to justify bundling more intrusive stuff.
I think the investors can see the value in not tarnishing the brand and so that might fuel their efforts to make sure none of their advertisers can be classified as malware/adware.
(Edited because I misinterpreted your comment the first time.)
Any business model based on annoying and abusing your users is not viable in the long term.
Quality.
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My mother's proliferation of "helpful" toolbars in FF says otherwise. Whichever way you slice it, this is simply a way to prey on uninformed users and shittify their experience. Sure, there's a demand for it. That doesn't make it right.
>I'm sure they do everything to ensure the bloatware is just that, and not malware.
Well that's a giant relief. So InstallMonetizer is only selling your IP and MAC (!) to advertisers, instead of selling your CC number to the Russian mob. Cheers to small victories.
It is like the Aaron case, what the prosecutor did was perfectly legal too and also actually normal in US justice system.
Enough with the scare tactics. A Mac adress is not, in any way, globally unique.
For instance, you can quite often uniquely identify a person given their date of birth, gender, and zip code, none of which are nearly as unique as a MAC address[1]. Even the combination of these factors results in < 2 billion unique permutations, whereas the MAC address space numbers in the hundreds of trillions. That means, given a MAC address, I can narrow narrow down the "who" to a fairly small set of people. Add in even one other piece of scraped info, and you've got a pretty high level of uniqueness.
[1] http://godplaysdice.blogspot.com/2009/12/uniquely-identifyin...
Take 400 computers and 2 of them will have the same MAC-address and you have DHCP-problems.
http://superuser.com/questions/268006/are-mac-addresses-uniq...
I have hosted several 300-400 person lan-parties and there is always two or three machines with the same MAC-address.
A MAC-address is somewhat unique, but it happens that manufactures re-use the address twice or more. I have a feeling that cheaper brands do it more, but I have nothing to back that up.
There is a discussion here that backs up my claim: http://superuser.com/questions/268006/are-mac-addresses-uniq...