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| Sometimes I even like lawyers... |
| 2002-12-04 |
| Seen on Metafilter: There's a class action suit against Bonzi Software, maker of Bonzi Buddy, the same friendly folks who warn you there's Porn on Your Computer and Your Internet Connection May Not Be Optimized (click to download). A (non-savvy) friend of mine once inadvertently downloaded Bonzi Buddy — he clicked there. It proceeded to take over his entire computer, constantly annoying him with an animated purple gorilla that called him by name without being properly introduced and tried to help him do things he didn't want to do. It took about three hours, a crowbar, and four sticks of dynamite to get the damned thing uninstalled, and I'm still not convinced it's totally gone. I'm hoping the class action's recognized and that the award is enough to put the bastards out of business. Then they can go after the people with the spy cameras, the other popup artists, and the people who make those flash animations that make sites like arabia.com unusable without a resident killer program. I'm against suing people at the drop of a hat, but the spyware/gimme your computer thing goes beyond the drop of a hat. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #6 Problem with the Mozilla pop-up blocker is that it's not too intelligent. It blocks some stuff that you want, and lets other stuff slip through. I personally use Pop-Up Ad Filter, and though it costs, it works like a charm. Damn near no Type I or II errors. |
| Posted by: Tripartite 2002-12-05 02:30:47 |
| #5 Try the mozilla browser, you will get hooked. |
| Posted by: PJ 2002-12-04 22:58:18 |
| #4 I've been using a freeware program called ZoneAlarm, and it does a pretty decent job. If you have a VPN connection for the office, you may need to disable it. It's annoying to see alerts hit your screen, and certainly some are admissable, but you can toggle the alerts "off" as well. |
| Posted by: Lexicon 2002-12-04 21:43:47 |
| #3 I use NoAds myself, a freeware anti-popup program (I need to check for an update) and also Ad-Aware. BTW, I'm searching for a decent personal firewall program for my new Comcast broadband connection. Any ideas? |
| Posted by: Joe 2002-12-04 20:25:44 |
| #2 try a program called ad-aware. it's free, and scans for spyware and popup-instigating programs. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2002-12-04 18:11:23 |
| #1 I've been using Pop-up killer (it's free...) but even with that I find the bastards modify their ads once in a while and they sneak through with new ones |
| Posted by: Frank G 2002-12-04 17:49:49 |