What good alternatives would people suggest? What should be the "goto" site we could suggest to a novice for finding a clean copy of almost any software...any suggestions?
(Assuming that an expert user would straight to the source website)
CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#12Previous post was mentioned on HN ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3317121 )
Yeah, I guess I wasn't paying enough attention but this was the first I'd heard of it.
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#13What good alternatives would people suggest? What should be the "goto" site we could suggest to a novice for finding a clean copy of almost any software...any suggestions? (Assuming that an expert user would straight to the source website)
Filehippo may be clean, if with less coverage?
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#14"This is probably why CNET switch to installing the Babylon Toolbar yesterday. This is a good and welcome move by Microsoft, but the whole process of paying “distribution partners“ to changer user's home page to MSN and search engine to Bing is rather sketchy"
I am puzzled by the reaction of some journalists and people here. Have you actually thought why the toolbar is marked as malware? Usually, that's because one guy in one of the AV companies installed the toolbar, didn't like it and so put a flag on. Malware as a definition is something that does harm to your computer. We could argue whether this is actually the case as most of the toolbars, including StartNow just provide search functionality and homepage reset - this is how they make money - there is no reason to do anything sketchy on top of that.
I am not trying to defend toolbar companies here but the quote above that its actually a good thing to replace StartNow with Babylon is misinforming the public. These toolbars all do the same thing and they should either be marked all by AV companies or not. Of course its never gonna happen because there are some AV companies that won't flag toolbars because hey - they distribute toolbars too!
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#15When my mother forwards me the latest malware scare chain letter she got frm her friends, I tell her to picture her computer as a plane flying at Mach 4, high above in the stratosphere, confident almost nothing launched from the ground can harm her. That's because she doesn't use Windows.
But this is ignorant and not true.
For laymen's purposes it pretty much is, though. When was the last time anyone on Linux/OSX got some adware / popups?
I've also never heard of antivirus for Linux. Which doesn't mean there aren't viruses, it means it's not a concern on the most part.
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#16What good alternatives would people suggest? What should be the "goto" site we could suggest to a novice for finding a clean copy of almost any software...any suggestions? (Assuming that an expert user would straight to the source website)
Any good "goto" site won't stay that way for long, because it will automatically have strong incentives to try tons of stupid crap like this.
But you can use these sites for software lookup. Then you check the listed developer name, Bing your way onto their website, and look for a download link.
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this is ignorant and not true.
For laymen's purposes it pretty much is, though. When was the last time anyone on Linux/OSX got some adware / popups? I've also never heard of antivirus for Linux. Which doesn't mean there aren't viruses, it means it's not a concern on the most part.
"For laymen's purposes it pretty much is, though. When was the last time anyone on Linux/OSX got some adware / popups?"
For OS X, one or two months ago. Do a web search, the times are changing for Mac security.
"I've also never heard of antivirus for Linux. Which doesn't mean there aren't viruses, it means it's not a concern on the most part."
No, it just means it's not your concern. When online crime has become a business, it makes sense to try to protect yourself. Major AV companies have a product for Linux.
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#18What good alternatives would people suggest? What should be the "goto" site we could suggest to a novice for finding a clean copy of almost any software...any suggestions? (Assuming that an expert user would straight to the source website)
The software producer's website is the only safe place.
Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#19"This is probably why CNET switch to installing the Babylon Toolbar yesterday. This is a good and welcome move by Microsoft, but the whole process of paying “distribution partners“ to changer user's home page to MSN and search engine to Bing is rather sketchy" I am puzzled by the reaction of some journalists and people here. Have you actually thought why the toolbar is marked as malware? Usually, that's because one g…
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Re: CNET Injecting Malware into Downloads
#20There's three things here. First, adding a toolbar and screwing with user settings is freaking lame, but everyone does it and it's something that's been an accepted way to monitize software development.
However, injecting that into other people's software is low, especially if the developers aren't aware of it. CNET should be ashame.
Lastly, the way they present it to users should be plainly criminal. There's a way to offer additional programs, and that's with a checkbox. The screenshot they show is CLEARLY meant to confuse users, whereas even I would have clicked next hadn't I seen the circled text. On this point CNET should be sued for deceptive tactics, because they put NMAP (or the name of whatever you downloaded) as the title, and present buttons that are meant to deceive, making it seem like it's NMAP's own EULA.