This is disgusting behavior from what could be considered the first "app store". What a shame.
First "app store"? Hello, Simtel? Tucows? and before them countless BBSes?
CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
31–40 of 71 posts
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#32People who have Symantec anti-virus will already have this flagged. No, not the malware but nmap itself!
Many anti-virus software packages flag nmap, netcat & other network utilities as malware.
Thankful for apt-get install beauty.
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#33This should be sufficient cause for all web filters and security software to block access to CNET due to the malware. But will it actually happen, or are they treated with a special standard?
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#34Shit. I just found that my application which was updated last week and is the 10th most popular system utility app on Download.com is also being similarly bundled [1]. This was not the case last week. I think Softpedia and FileHippo are the only big sites left not doing this ridiculous practice. I'm debating whether or not to pull the application listing. What do you guys think? [1]: http://download.cnet.com/EasyBCD/…
majorgeeks.com has been my go to download site for awhile now because of this kind of nonsense. I hope they don't go down the same road as download.com
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#35This should be sufficient cause for all web filters and security software to block access to CNET due to the malware. But will it actually happen, or are they treated with a special standard?
As the "malware" is only downloaded after you installed a download manager, I doubt the Cnet website will get marked as the distributor.
I believe it goes like this: - User clicks on link to download software - User is being asked to install Cnet download manager - Download manager downloads more software, including the crapware
Because the actual download does not happen on the Cnet site, it does not gets marked as a distributor.
I can be wrong though, this is just my hypothesis of what is happening.
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#36Shit. I just found that my application which was updated last week and is the 10th most popular system utility app on Download.com is also being similarly bundled [1]. This was not the case last week. I think Softpedia and FileHippo are the only big sites left not doing this ridiculous practice. I'm debating whether or not to pull the application listing. What do you guys think? [1]: http://download.cnet.com/EasyBCD/…
Either it's your app or not.
(What would Microsoft's reaction be if BestBuy modified Office to install iTunes?)
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#37Shit. I just found that my application which was updated last week and is the 10th most popular system utility app on Download.com is also being similarly bundled [1]. This was not the case last week. I think Softpedia and FileHippo are the only big sites left not doing this ridiculous practice. I'm debating whether or not to pull the application listing. What do you guys think? [1]: http://download.cnet.com/EasyBCD/…
While you're here:
The gallery link appears to 404:
(http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/gallery/album/view/neosmart/Easy...)
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#38This, and preinstalled "crapware" on newly bought computers/phones happens because vendors have no incentive not to do it, except perhaps out of goodness their heart. Yes, it disgusts me too, but moral issues aside: (a) Vendors are looking to make money (simply speaking) and bundling crapware is a low-hanging fruit to do so. They have a choice between making $X per customer and $X+30 cents. Which choice should they p…
See also Sony offering to sell Vaios without the bundled junk for an extra $50.
(http://www.pcworld.com/article/143677/sony_removes_bloatware...)
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#39What an egregiousness abuse of user trust. I hope this destroys their brand forever.
Until this story hits mainstream, there's no hope of that happening. Even if it does hit mainstream, you need a bunch of talking heads that are able to explain to luddites what the implications are.
One can hope it destroys the brand for power-users. It's been a while since I've been using windows, but in the past I've trusted download.com when I needed some piece of freeware. I'll be more careful now.
What about all the the open source projects hosted there? A quick search shows that they offer VLC and Firefox - are they clean?
Re: CNet's Download.com now bundling Nmap with malware
#40Off the topic here, are there still many people download software programs from download sites, like download.com, brothersoft.com or softpedia?
Yes. Download.com is the 173rd highest traffic site in the world. They're probably pushing over 100-200k downloads a month at least. Nothing compared to the Apple or Android app stores, but still a significant number.
I'm guestimating that you're off by an order of magnitude.
According to Alexa, somewhere between 0.6% and 0.8% of the entire web goes there every day.