Downloading? Watch Out For These Danger Signs - Comments Page 2

Great item Bob...One of the few download sites I still use & even recommend is Filehippo.com...they have been fairly consistent in keeping the downloads limited to the items you select and nothing more.
One of those that tries hard top slip through is the Adobe Flash/Shockwave and other products. They seem to have climbed into bed with McAfee and want to slip in toolbars and scanners on the sly.
Your words of caution are well founded and essential for a stable system.
Thank you very much for your work!

I have found Cnet to be among the worse when I used it years ago. I have used Fiehippo for 5 or so years now, and along with update checker am very satisfied with them. Seldom a problem. If you want a real trip and you just want an Audacity update. Yikes! It's unbelievable. Best regards, john.

Hi Bob, V.G. and timely article, if not too late... - thank you for the vehement expressions of horror, frustration and disgust, which mirror my sentiments exactly.

You wrote: "The problem is especially bad at CNET's Download.com site, and they deserve to be shunned and scorned for it." I stopped going anywhere near CNet over a year ago.

This is a bad-news trend - and a bad reflection - on freeware. Gizmo's site still carries such freeware, but along with a warning, which is great and acceptable. Now one has an informed choice.

Even good names like Avast! and Avira are now popping up adds from subscription AV programs; and from iobit I got a purchased program with 75% of the interface taken up with an advertisement for another "Buy NOW" program. (I am beginning to HATE that word "NOW"!) It took me five months to get a refund - through a third party activist.

I wrote Avast! a very straightforward email telling them I left Avira mid-term, with 6 months subscription left, for sinking so low, only to find that who I thought was way above such sordid practices, was also there. I made no bones that Avast! had now lost it's good standing and integrity as well. Odd that I am unable to log in to see Avast!'s reply to my ticket: my username and password, hitherto fine, no longer work.

I also wrote to FileHippo, also one of the best in the past, for carrying programs with foistware, without a warning, from which one is unable to opt out, as it is now included in the EULA! - stuff like Open Candy, AVG Toolbar, Ask Toolbar, Conduit, Delta etc etc.

These days I seldom venture to download a program, but just make do with what I've got.

Gizmo's TechSupportAlert investigated a small program named "Unchecky", found it good, and offered it. I installed it and it runs unobtrusively in the background, and unchecks those slimy, checked tick-boxes that we all know so well. A great little program, rendering a smart service to the unwary.

Try these sites, which are safe:
"Softpedia-" >>;
"Freewarebb-" >;
Here is an article with links which is an in depth explanation of how to download safely:
>

I notice a couple of comments surrounding companies' re-imbursement. Many others give, as does this site, on the hope of being promoted, and for advertising dollars. If one is trying to garner the latter, foistware is NOT the avenue to go down, in my opinion. Best regards, john.

Bob ... I had missed your first article, written early in 2013. Boy, I wished I hadn't, too. I downloaded, I think it was Avast's Free version and I got the Conduit and Sweet Packs added to my PC, without asking for permission or even notifying that these two Foistwares, would be installed, as well.

I can only say ... I took me almost a week, to get rid of them. I had to get into the Registry, to achieve this, too! I tried using Malwarebytes, that didn't work, the program simply kept on scanning and making no progress. I tried CCleaner, nope ... I tried Malwarebytes' Chameleon and still Conduit was there, as was Sweet Packs. Then, I started researching, found AdwCleaner and that did help, but, I still had Sweet Packs.

I found out that this Foistware was a rootkit issue, much harder to locate and remove. It took me several times, deleting both of these programs, in the registry, before they were finally gone. Doing this, is not for the faint-hearted, either. After, I got mine PC cleared, I then proceeded to work on my daughter's PC, who had the exact same 2 programs and she lives in California, while I live in Georgia. Remote accessing is wonderful. :)

Strange, but I've never had any problems with cnet. Of course, many programs has additions in their installers, but I think, it's from the manufacturers to collect a little money from free versions. So I always take custom or manual install instead of typical or automatic. Also nobody mentioned www.majorgeeks.com as a good source for any downloads. There was just one link for a particular program, but this site is an universal download hub.

Sometimes third-part uninstallers go postal and instead of removing one program mistakenly remove much more, making the system completely dead. It happened several times with me and every time rollback recovers system completely. Every good uninstaller performs automatic backup before removing any program. Also always check extensions in browsers - this is another way to sneak into your system for any kind of unwanted -ware. So I don't see any big problem here. Just some extra attention.

What I always do is try and go to the original software authors site directly (usually after a google search). In the case of CCleaner it directs you to Piriform.com and the download is offered by FileHippo which in my experience has been foistware free.

re:Severe Weather Alert (Desktop Notifications when storms are heading your way) cited above

I don't remember the download but Malwarebytes Anti-Malware prevented the download until I cleared the checkmark from above d/l.

Tony said, "How else are these guys going to get paid for the service they provide?"

CNet et al. are not paying for the software you *want*. They have a deal to get paid to foist software on you *that you don't want*. They're not providing a service to me at all.

Option A: The software I want is free. If I'm not paying for it, why should the foisters get paid to "help" me download it?

Option B: I want to download shareware, or pay for the full version. That's my choice, and I don't try to get around paying for software that requests that I pay or uninstall the software. The software developers are the ones who deserve to be paid, not the foisters.

I usually use freewarefiles.com to get free downloads of great software. If you use the free ware files direct download option those are free of any malware or viruses and DL cleanly.

After wading through the many pitfalls and downloading the installation program, I still had more pre-checked offers during installation. I found a program named "Unchecky" (http://unchecky.com/) which does what its name implies. It un-checks the pre-checked boxes.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to remove Conduit from friends' computers the last few months. AdwCleaner was the only thing that would get rid of it. Afer begging my friends to choose custom install, read carefully and uncheck the boxes other than those for the actual software (They never do!), I am installing Unchecky on their computers to at least protect them from their unmindful clicking of "Next." Maybe then my time with them won't be so frustrating. Thanks, Bob, for all you do! Love your articles!

Foistware is getting worse, especially as once respectable software includes "sneakware" for the bucks. The few remaining download sites like filehippo and ninite reflect the seriousness of the proble. Btw, the worse unwanted download I experienced was "Ask.anything". It took a long time and ample searches to scrap it...and still it gets offered frequently.

I have been caught a few times with foistware, but I'm learning to be a lot more careful.

As far as removing unwanted programs is concerned, I use Revo Uninstaller - the free version - and so far it's managed to remove everything I've wanted to. It also searches for registry entries and other files etc left behind after the standard uninstall and removes those. When I find something which the free version can't deal with I shall pay for the other version and try that.

I had a user manage to get Conduit installed right through all of the memory resident anti-crap software I run on the terminals at work. The iobit uninstaller ran the uninstall, then did it's scan, and removed another 1300 registry entries. 1300 registry entries for a stupid browser toolbar. More hooks into windows (left after uninstall) than all of the entries from installing the entire Adobe Creative Suite (not uninstalling it). And it installs more stuff the longer you let it ride. It's worse than most malicious viruses.
Oddly, SuperAntiSpyware identifies iobit uninstaller as a PUP (it does install whether you want it or not, when you install Advanced System Care, but it's the easiest way to remove nasty stuff (and poorly written commercial software) that doesn't fully uninstall using just the standard uninstall msi. Revo and Privazer are nice, and very powerful, but iobit is just like using the windows uninstaller interface, with a single extra click to remove all of the left-overs, and seems to be pretty much idiot proof. Revo is too easy to mess something up...

Damn it Bob, Now I HAVE to go Linux !! This is going to be a learning curve to say the least.

I am a so-called IT security professional - albeit in and out of retirement with the miliary. The pitfalls of downloading never ceases to amaze me and the depths that once reputable sources like Tucows and CNET have sunk are disparaging. Thank you Mr. Rankin for your insight and patience it takes to identify and spread the word on these phishers and scammers.

The last time I used FileHippo to get updates for Ccleaner, they downloaded some crapware as well and I finally had to resort to System Restore to get rid of it. I eventually found where I could download updates from Ccleaner's own web site and I won't be using FileHippo anymore. What is wrong with these people? Is the siren call of money blocking out common sense?

One site I like is http://www.majorgeeks.com/. Unless they have changed recently downloads are straightforward without all the garbage.