I have had it up to here with companies that use, condone and otherwise traffic spyware/adware. To me this has to be the most annoying way for companies to recieve funding. Luckily for power-users like myself and probally most everyone on this forum, they can be fairly easily avoided. However for the general population, Adware should be labeled as a health hazard.
The part that really enrages me has nothing to do with the privacy concern. No, that has been hit on enough. The worst part about Adware is the "software" itself. (I use the term "software" lightly, I would definitely classify Adware in the same category as viruses, worms and trojans.) I have 4 computers in the house and the 2 "family" computers never seem to survive more that a couple weeks without beginning to get cluttered by this annoying crapware. However that is light end of it my home computers are easily fixed. The real problem affects casual users the most. I have seen a friends computer which I do regular maintance on virtually destroyed by this junk. BSOD, Half-Hour boot times, and crashes are daily occurances, all caused by the 100s of damn adware aps running at startup. (And I'm not exagerating) It took me a good part of the afternoon to clean off MOST of the junk.
The question I pose is what is your view on the nature of Adware? Is it a valid business practice? Should drive-by-downloads simply be an intristic part of your internet experience? Personally I think not. It turns looking up information on the web into a game of Dodgeball against popups.
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"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato
April 29th, 2004, 00:58
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