May 1, 2006
Can You Spot The Spyware Site?
McAfee has an on-line quiz to see you can determine which site is safe and which one will install addware and spyware. It’s quick and revealing. I only got 4 of 8 right. (Mulligan: The one to the left is safe).
It’s from a spyware removal vendor, and it’s pushing their SiteAdvisor service, so take it all with a grain of salt. But SiteAdvisor is free, and is pretty useful for spotting malicious websites.
It may be a useful product, but the quiz is pure marketing, intended to make you feel helpless.
How can you judge from the website design and claims whether they send spam-like email, or include trojan horses in the “free” software? You can’t. They can’t, either. They probably consult an online database of known-iffy sites.
Here’s better advice for avoiding spyware/adware: don’t download free, binary-only windows software. Look for open-source software, or at least try to find some online ratings or reviews done by someone knowledgeable.
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:26 pmHow do you define if someone is knowledgeable?
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:39 pmEven if the product is open-source, who actually reviews the source to make sure it’s doing-no-harm?
Is that what you tell your mom, “don’t download free, binary-only windows software”?
My experience with freely downloadable windows software falls into 4 categories:
- it is a crippleware/nagware/demoware version of the for-money software
- it is spyware/adware bait by the nefarious
- it is very narrowly targeted, usually not flashy, written by an egalitarian hobbyist, and sometimes useful
- it is a windows-port of some open-source software, developed by small community, usually useful at least for something.
I try to download and install only free software in the last two categories.
All the sites shown in the SiteAdvisor quiz look glitzed-up enough to make me suspect they fall in the first two categories, what I would call “no free lunch” software.
I tell my Mom where she can find AdAware, etc.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:10 pmGood points.
It’s interesting that you admit that the way a site looks or how “glitzed-up” they look is a deciding point for you.
The point of the SiteAdvisor tool is to have a little bit more emperical data to make you decision on than just how it looks.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:58 pmMcAfee has always been known in the technical community as a resource hog. Chances are it is the number one consumer of your systems resources. It is poorly designed, as many modules are loaded at start up, that are either infrequently used or never used. In a PC that doesn’t have 4 GIG of memory, this can have a major performance impact. I could go on and on about the technical aspects of McAfee, but there is even something more frightening about this collage of software(for those brave enough to call it that). That is their new Site Advisor package.
This poorly designed scheme to assemble an untrained work force to bash McAfee’s competition, control search engine results, and censor internet content is the furthest thing from securing a computer. Groups and companies with unknown agendas can hire underpaid workforces to do nothing but bash sites unacceptable to their own interest. It takes two minutes to become a site advisor, and no real verification of identity is performed. Please read some of the reviews of McAfee’s competition or software review sites, if you want examples.
Another insane aspect is red flagging a site for linking to another site. Anyone who operates a forum or blog site could get hammered simply because of some ones signature. In you were to present this logic to a psychologist, he would classify it as a paranoid schizophrenic. Because you linked to a site you are as guilty of any wrong doing as that site. But the reality is even more scary. The site that was red flagged, will remove the link to the other site. Thus lowering link popularity, and eventually the site will rate so low that it will disappear from the results pages of the search engines. This shows extremely poor judgement, and for a security company, and all it’s customers, it is fatal.
McAfee in general is a poor excuse for software(excessive memory usage, excessive cpu usage, and the most inefficient Input/Output utilization, I’ve ever witnessed, but if you turn over the rock, you can really see who the true criminals and real dangers to the web are.
McAfee/Network Associates itself has a dubious past. It has devised various schemes to defraud share holders since 1998, and is currently restating 10 years of earnings because of these practices. It has until Jan to resolve these issues, or it will be delisted from the NYSE. These include overstating earnings to defraud share holders. The back dating of options, bilking share holders out of $150,000,000. The question must be asked, is the fox watching the hen house. Should we turn over control of the internet to a bunch of unknowns(site reviewers) and known criminals.
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:07 am