Came home from work today and wife complained about the computer acting weird. Apparantly windows popped up by them selves. Yea, its hijacked, I figured.

So I downloaded process explorer and found the creeps and killed them. Then downloaded adaware and defender and started searching for whatever took over the computer. At the same time trying to interrogate my wife what she has installed... She couldnt remember anything special. After a while I remember I had Your uninstaller and ran it only to figure out she had installed a new version of MSGplusLive...

She got a update message while using the computer, downloaded the update and installed it. She dont know what it does other than the fact that I've installed it previously so it must be ok.

I know the stage in the installer where you choose not to install the "software from hell" (aka browser hijacker) is pretty clear, and if she only had read it a little closer... but she didnt.

I cant express in words (suitable for this forum) how much I despite the sponsorprogram, and I see myself forced to uninstall msgpluslive at home since I cant trust the other users not to press next, next, yes, ok, agree, next, finish, and so on. There MUST be some other way to get this software sponsored.

A  huge to the current sponsorship-solution.

People should read the installer properly.

quote:

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Originally posted by skaue
A  huge (Smilie) to the current sponsorship-solution.

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quote:

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Originally posted by skaue
"software from hell" (aka browser hijacker)

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As pointed out in the first post; I know the installer stage can not be misunderstood. This is true if you care to read instead of ignorantly just pressing "yes - whatever - get me out of here".

Using "browser hijack" might be a false term in sense of definition, however "software from hell" is not, imo.

I do agree with you there, and thanks for posting while keeping an open mind. We often get complete idiots ranting about how their computer is dying, often exaggerating their point.

You have a point there, but this is the sole income for the creator. However he is looking for alternative methods of making a living from it, and I guess Patchou hasn't stumbled upon it yet .

Maybe your wife should be using a Limited Account.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience but as you probably noticed yourself, the only thing you had was a couple of popup and uninstalling the sponsor quicikly solved it (what probably took long was the scans you previously done with third party software). There is no hijack of anything, just a couple of ads and it's your choice to keep them or not .

Patchou: it would solve half (if not more) of everybody's sponsor problems if you had them have it automatically run an uninstaller when it detects that something tried to remove it...

and how am I suppsoed to do that? adding watchdogs that would look even more suspicious to people? CircleDev has being doing some extra work to help people quickly identify the popups (by adding "CiD" in the title of most popups for instance, which can also be seen in the Add/Remove Programs entry now next to "Sponsor"). I've said it many times before, the sponsor is like any other program and its unisntalled is available in the same place too. You don't try to remove Office with a third party, don't try with the sponsor either (the first reflex anybody should have when trying to remove a program is not launching Adaware but go in Add/Remove to see if they can identify it from there).

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Originally posted by Patchou
Adware

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Well, I found that uninstalling MSGPlus gave me the option to only uninstall the popups, so I didnt uninstall it completely. For what its worth, Patchou has done a lot to keep the annoyances of the sponsorship away. I honestly can't see why anyone would want those popups everythime they launch a browser, even if they did play casino. The whole concept is by far the most stupid approach to get more customers. But then again, there are a lot of stupid users out there who might actually click the adds, and it all pays off.

If only Microsoft could send you (Patchou) a paycheck reguarly instead... if only.

Yeah, that would be sweet wouldn't it? . Thanks for your understanding (note: on your wife's account, you can always disable auto-update in the preferences ).

no problem, patchou... after counting backwards to ten and taking a deep breath, I consider my self yin-yan again, calm and balanced

in reply to your note; for the sake of simplicity we share the account on that home-machine.... I have my own work-laptop I use.

Oh that will be fine too. The auto-update setting is like any other preferences of Messenger Plus! and it's saved per different Messenger account (not just different Windows account... of course, if you already meant that, ignore that reply )

Ok. I didnt know that. But then again, the only MSN account used on that machine is hers. Maybe I'll just disable auto-update either way.

However, I'm pretty sure she'll be more careful from now on (No, I was not physical when telling her to read before clicking!).