Yesterday I got a mail from wondog about BearShare, and that it is actually spyware
Hey MP3! |
Just letting You know that BS IS indeed spyware, or rather the install package contains a stealth package (doesn't list during install) called
Onflow (so BS isn't in itself SW but installs Spyware). The Onflow "feature" has been confirmed by the BS author himself but only after intense pressure
from various users responding negatively to the feature after cathing the phoning home feature in various firewalls (c'mon guys who can oppose to a little spyware ) The BS author's proclaimed justification for his use of
Onflow was a lack of income from BS compaired to his time spent developing it and thus he implemented Onflow in exchange for $$$ from the company. The Onflow "service" appears to be a "user-habbit-tracking" service which logs
info about Your various surfing habbits for use in user advertise targeting.
Nasty stuff ehh. What really offends me though is the Author's original reluctance to admit to his use of the service as well as the fact that he implemented the "feature" in stealth mode and for instance didn't allow people the choice to deselect it during install. Now, how a person can have the ability to produce a highly usefull app. like BS and still use such shady techniques really escapes me, go figure.
Regards Wondog
Well sounds clear to me. If u were u I wouldn't install BearShare. The fact it installs spyware on your PC without letting u know makes me .
Also did some research and found on http://www.infoanarchy.org this:
BearShare comes with three bundled applications: Onflow Media Player, SaveNow and New.net. Onflow is a Flash-like browser plug-in which displays animations and transmits user behavior information (not further specified) to the Onflow central servers. At the very least, it allows tracking individual Onflow users' visits to Onflow-sites without the use of cookies (with a GUID). Onflow has the capability to silently auto-update. |
SaveNow displays context-related shopping pop-up windows ins IE and can also silently auto-update. The context information seems to reside on the client side so that no information has to be transmitted to the central server. The program runs permanently in the background (regardless of the installation status of BearShare) and takes up a considerable amount of memory (~8 MB) on my system. Silent auto-updates are equivalent to giving a key to your PC to these companies, they can do whatever they want and whenever they want it.
New.net, which is the latest addition, is an alternative Domain Name Service which allows you to connect to TLDs like .free , .shop, .game and .xxx. Their business is registering these domains so infringing users' privacy should not be a top priority for them, but as far as I can see, their privacy policy only applies to domain registrants, not to installers of the plugin. Also, as they have to query an alternative DNS to let you access these sites, they will be able to track every visit to new.net-"powered" sites. BearShare bundles this third party software as an alternative to displaying banners within the software (or other income models).
Well make your own conclusions...
Source: Mail
