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| EddyT
40th Post
 
Rare Customer
 
|  "Gamespot's Download Manager hides spyware"
, posted Thu 18 Jul 11:16
If you read Madman's front page... there is a promotion that Gamespot is currently utilizing; a free download manager that mainly downloads videos of upcoming games.
Heed the warning... if you hate spyware, avoid this like the plague. It contains almost 200 strings of cydoor trojans within the program itself. I tried out this free download manager, and immediately Zonealarm alerted me that there was a couple of .exe file trying to access the internet. Ran a check on my Ad-Aware program, and found out about the spyware.
The way the download manager worked: After installation, it placed a "Gamespot Download Manager" on my desktop, and it had Kontiki running in the background every time I started up my computer. When I uninstalled it, it asked why I wanted to uninstall the program. Out of the 3 choices, one of them said "Too intrusive?". Do tell.
If you don't have Ad-Aware, a program that detects and deletes most spyware safely from your computer, visit their website at www.lavasoftusa.com and download the latest install version. If this is your first time using Ad-Aware, make sure to fully check the list of reported possible "spyware" strings before deleting them. It's been reported that on occasion, Ad-Aware mistakenly identifies a vital file for a program for spyware (I heard stories about Quicken mostly). There is an option to ignore a file for every check, so you don't have to manually ignore the file everytime.
Hope this helps.
Note: If you want to uninstall the Gamespot dl manager, turn it off from the Windows Start bar first. Uninstall it from your Programs menu, then run Ad-Aware (if you have it). The spyware strings won't be deleted even after uninstalling.
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| Professor 1661th Post
MMCafe Owner
     
| "Re(2):Gamespot's Download Manager hides spywa" , posted Thu 18 Jul 16:06
quote:
thanks for the warning, man
i'm one of the most paranoid people on this board when it comes to spyware
oh yea, Zonealarm sounds like an interesting program! hm, i've gotta look it up. it could become useful to me
One warning about ZoneAlarm. I just installed it yesterday, major headaches aftwerwards. I beleive I'm a special case however, since I made a few No-No's. I use Win98SE, which I later learnt that ZoneAlarm doesn't really work well with. If you use NT or 2K, there shouldn't be any probs. (There might be problems if you run ME.) Here goes my case.
What I did, I deactivated ZoneAlarm from the Startup so that I can just run it whenever I felt I wanted the security. But apparently the program seized Windows so that the user can't connect to the Internet without running ZoneAlarm first.
I didn't like the idea, so I uninstalled the program. That didn't fix the problem- it worsened it. I still couldn't reach the Internet, and ZoneAlarm was no longer on my PC so that I could run it to put my internet connection up. Yipes.
I restored a backup of my Windows registries, and things seem to be going fine now. For some reason Java got screwed and wouldn't run, so I had to reinstall it as well.
I'll still be installing a Firewall, but next time I'll find something that's more friendly with 98. LoL.
 Click Me.
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| Juke Joint Jezebel 658th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member
  
    
  
|  "Re(3):Gamespot's Download Manager hides spywa"
, posted Thu 18 Jul 16:15
quote:
thanks for the warning, man
i'm one of the most paranoid people on this board when it comes to spyware
oh yea, Zonealarm sounds like an interesting program! hm, i've gotta look it up. it could become useful to me
One warning about ZoneAlarm. I just installed it yesterday, major headaches aftwerwards. I beleive I'm a special case however, since I made a few No-No's. I use Win98SE, which I later learnt that ZoneAlarm doesn't really work well with. If you use NT or 2K, there shouldn't be any probs. (There might be problems if you run ME.) Here goes my case.
What I did, I deactivated ZoneAlarm from the Startup so that I can just run it whenever I felt I wanted the security. But apparently the program seized Windows so that the user can't connect to the Internet without running ZoneAlarm first.
I didn't like the idea, so I uninstalled the program. That didn't fix the problem- it worsened it. I still couldn't reach the Internet, and ZoneAlarm was no longer on my PC so that I could run it to put my internet connection up. Yipes.
I restored a backup of my Windows registries, and things seem to be going fine now. For some reason Java got screwed and wouldn't run, so I had to reinstall it as well.
I'll still be installing a Firewall, but next time I'll find something that's more friendly with 98. LoL.
hehe thanks for the other warning. i was just about to download it. i also like to run things manually. that sounds like such a bitch to put up with -_- i'll look around. maybe there's something else that can detect when other programs try to access the internet
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