Help KaZaa

Daughter claims there is spyware in RealDown load too!?

[Shane]

My teen daughter downloaded KaZaa and I noticed a new icon on the bottom of the screen when I connected. Ran Adaware and discovered the spyware and had it removed but the icon is still there.

The questions I need help with:
When discussing with teen daughter she said "RealDownLoad has spyware too?" Is this true?

I ran Adaware but the icon is still there when I connect and I want it gone. Any ideas on how to do this without corrupting Windows?

With a little more searching and I found KaZaa lite which claims to not have spyware. Is this true?

Thanks in advance,
Shane

[Sinner_G]

I don't know about RealDOwnload, but I wouldn't really trust this Kazaa lite thing either.

I guess the icon is still there because the prog has written itself into the registry. There are tools around to get rid of that. Do a google search for registry cleaning tools or something similar.

[toolman]

I know at one point RealPlayer had a default setting which phoned home. Don't know about now.

M$ owns a large amount of stock in Real so I can imagine the "control freak" factor is built into the software if M$ has it's say.

[Dreamquick]

Kazaa / KazaaLite shrink themselves to just an icon on the taskbar so potentially that's what you're seeing.

KazaaLite does claim to be Adware free - I use it and don't see adverts and AdAware says my system is clean so feel free to draw your own conclusions since I don't have a definite answer.

RealDownload was reported to have spyware installed - although I'm sure a quick Google will turn up something current in relation to this...

There are a number of freeware download managers out there which are just as good as the commercial ones.

- Tony

[Shane]

Sinner_G,

The "icon" only appears when I have dialed in and it appears on the bar at the bottom of the screen (short but burtal memory lapse of thingie name). So it is an active task. It does also generate alot of pop-ups. (Is there a pop-up killer?)

Interesting about the RealDownLoad default of dialing home.

Never trust control freaks!

..... Shane

[Shane]

Okay did the Google thing and WOW, EVERYONE should take five minutes and read this:

[aluminumstudios.com...]

An eye opener!

Chow,
Shane

[sun818]

RealDownload is the culprit. Kazaa Lite has no spyware. I've been using it for the last six months. Real Network programs will do nasty stuff like force associate file types to the program. It also runs background tasks like realsched.exe and rnathchk.exe which is very difficult to get rid of unless you uninstall the whole program. Real Networks really does force it down your throat... :(

A good alternative to Real Download is Download Accelerator (Beta).

[Shane]

Sun818,

Thanks. The things you trust and then you find out eh?

Any easy and good way to get rid of RealDownLoad Sun818?

Thanks,
Shane

[mayor]

I read somewhere that the recent version of Kazaa Lite is also carrying spyware. Plus, users of this pirateware may soon get in trouble with the law for stealing copywrited material (and who knows what else).

[seofan]

I wrote a news piece on this back in 2001 when Kazaa bundled Ezula's "TopText" with their software which would cause highlights appear over ANY text on your browser that matched the keywords that a client purchased through Ezula.'

That meant that if a client purchased "cars" as a key word, when you looked up cars on a search engine, read an article on cars, or found info on repair for cars, the word cars would be highlighted. If you clicked on the highlighted key word, you would go to the Ezula advertiser's site.

This, in essence, is what we termed "hijack software". If you had a site about cars, then visitors with Kazaa/Ezula that come to your site would see ugly yellow highlighted links all over YOUR site that would take you to the COMPETITORS site. Even worse, advertisers could buy common phrases or keywords that had nothing to do with "cars" (or the site's real subject at hand) and go to sites selling something that you would not approve of.

Following the "cars" example, if your cars site had a visitor that displayed the Ezula TopText highlighted links all over your page and they clicked on it, they could be sent to a site that sold car insurance, car repair kits, books on how to steal cars or even porno sites - you have no control on how this software uses YOUR site!

Believe it or not, LookSmart was one of the top advertisers of Ezula/TopText (determined from evidence as of Jan 15, 2002 which was a year ago) for quite a few keywords, including Tickets, Hotel Reservation, Car, Computer, Computers, Tickets, Ticket, Classifieds, Auction, Auctions, Business, Shoe, Shoes, SUV, Motorcycles.