Post your nominees for anushole of the year

[brimstoneSalad]

It's a bit more complicated, because developers that are well-intentioned can still add wrong things. Not only by building in malicious functionality themselves, which happens very often in big companies, mostly because they want to profit by using models like advertising.

Well, just using advertising doesn't make you malicious. You have to be sneaky and underhanded about it, like creating pop-ups on the user's computer when they're not even using your program. Or spying on the user's activity outside the bounds of your software.

But it's also not unusual that developers add third party libraries to their project that snoop on their users (take Google Analytics or other trackers for example).

That's a good point. I don't think Google is very bad (although it seems to be on a slippery slope), but there may be some nastier third party stuff out there that developers unwittingly use and introduce malicious software to the user.
I think that's a good argument to use only open source libraries. But the software itself doesn't have to be open source to avoid those problems.

[brimstoneSalad]

Just to illustrate a point:

I just installed some open source software, and it put the malware "findwide toolbar" on my system. I'm currently trying to get rid of it.

And I downloaded it from somewhere legit too (the project page). The developers knew that was in there, and they knew what it was, but they put it in anyway (even though I declined the offer on setup).

So, open source developers and software can be evil too. As long as the evil is small or insidious enough, people may miss it, and it might not be worth the trouble (or manage to get the search ratings to let it float to the top) to make a clean build.

[PrincessPeach]

That's a good point. I don't think Google is very bad (although it seems to be on a slippery slope), but there may be some nastier third party stuff out there that developers unwittingly use and introduce malicious software to the user.
I think that's a good argument to use only open source libraries. But the software itself doesn't have to be open source to avoid those problems.

You don't want to think google is bad but they are!

Google chrome has spy ware plugins built right into it tracking every page you go to and sending it off to third party organizations that pay for it.

"Are we officially calling it spyware? Well… it’s not quite that simple. Wikipedia defines spyware as “software that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge and that may send such information to another entity without the consumer’s consent”. That doesn’t mean that all software that gathers data is necessarily spyware, and it doesn’t mean that all software that sends data back to their servers is necessarily spyware.

But when the developer of an extension goes out of their way to hide the fact that every single page you visit is being stored and sent to a corporation that pays them for that data while burying it in the settings as “anonymous usage statistics”, there is a problem, at least. Any reasonable user would assume that if a developer wants to track usage statistics, they are only going to be tracking the usage of the extension itself — but the opposite is true. Most of these extensions are tracking everything else you do except using the extension. They are just tracking you.

This becomes even more problematic because they call it “anonymous usage statistics”; the word “anonymous” implies that it would be impossible to figure out who that data belongs to, as if they are scrubbing the data clean of all your information. But they aren’t. Yeah, sure, they are using an anonymous token to represent you rather than your full name or email, but every single page you visit is tied to that token. For as long as you have that extension installed.

Track anybody’s browsing history long enough, and you can figure out exactly who they are."

http://www.howtogeek.com/180175/warning ... ng-on-you/


Watch this great PBS special all about it!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... f-secrets/


OR is PBS not trusted because it's publicly funded hahaha.

[PrincessPeach]

Just to illustrate a point:

I just installed some open source software, and it put the malware "findwide toolbar" on my system. I'm currently trying to get rid of it.

And I downloaded it from somewhere legit too (the project page). The developers knew that was in there, and they knew what it was, but they put it in anyway (even though I declined the offer on setup).

So, open source developers and software can be evil too. As long as the evil is small or insidious enough, people may miss it, and it might not be worth the trouble (or manage to get the search ratings to let it float to the top) to make a clean build.

What type of software did you download?
&& you should never install anything straight to your computer especially if you haven't paid for it..

It's a hell of a lot easier to get rid of a download than an actual instillation.

[brimstoneSalad]

It was free software. I got rid of it, it only took a few minutes. Incredibly annoying though. Not something one usually expects from open source software.

[PrincessPeach]

It was free software. I got rid of it, it only took a few minutes. Incredibly annoying though. Not something one usually expects from open source software.

I think you downloaded something you shouldn't have..! Even though it's free doesn't make it right...
Im trying to think of good analogy here but I'm coming up blank... Some people like the developers of Ubuntu want the user to have free versions of Microsoft office PowerPoint excel & ect...

Completely different thN the one developer who made that YouTube converter you just tried to download..

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't know what you mean. The entire software package was open source.
Free as in freedom, and all of that. It wasn't something that was ripped and then distributed for free (if that were the case, I wouldn't have been surprised).

[PrincessPeach]

I don't know what you mean. The entire software package was open source.
Free as in freedom, and all of that. It wasn't something that was ripped and then distributed for free (if that were the case, I wouldn't have been surprised).

What type of software package ?!

There are programs that your anti-virus may read as a threat to you but they aren't ...

Programmers have developed little 'widgets' that will collect and store user information that may confuse your anti-malware software.


Also take in mind when you buy a program from Microsoft or Apple all the plug-ins and drivers are already installed into the computer so that the computer can read and understand it...
You could install ubuntu14 on an old computer and it would not integrate in the touchscreen application because the computer you installed it on to does not have that 'app' installed into so it can not read or understand it...
You put ubuntu14 on a new laptop that has Microsoft 8 and guess what~ you now have a touchscreen!
Why? Because it's installed into the computer and it recognizes it.
When you get something that was free your computer may not understand it because it's may not be written %100 in a language that your computer fully understands...

[brimstoneSalad]

Findwide toolbar. Pretty sure it's malware.

[PrincessPeach]

Findwide toolbar. Pretty sure it's malware.

No wonder!
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER
download anything that has anything to do with adds or coupons

What that would have done was taken over your browser and made you have to click on a bunch of adds so some shitty people can get a few cents for each fucking click. Re-direct you to scam sites ect ect..

What web browser do you use now ?

http://www.opera.com/computer/windows


Opera just like google chrome but with out all the spybot's built in

also before downloading something maybe try googling it first .. look at my search results
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=findwide+toolbar