Shoutbox

I downloaded this extension from the official site in the first place, the updates were as followed when the program had a new version available. This is the only time I've had anything go out of the ordinary, also it appears someone else had the same problem, that makes four of us now.

It would be nice if we could be enlightened as to why this is happening to multiple users, after all you are the ones responsible for the program in the first place.

People, if you have downloaded from the official site and unticked the boxes like you said then nothing gets installed in reference to the sponsors. Nothing was/is hijacked nor infected in the setup file.

I agree that a mishap might happen and that you have pressed 'next', 'next', next' too quickly (because the boxes are unfortunatly ticked by default), but if you take your time to read the pages and what is going to be installed, and decide to untick the sponsor or searchbar boxes, then nothing gets installed in regards to that!!

Cadavre, the number of people does not matter. In fact tens of thousands of people do not have such a problem.

And for the record also: we are not responsible! We are just volunteers who try to help people.

I made pretty sure it wouldn't install anything I didn't want, which was just about everything except the update itself.

So the majority versus the minority. Right. I'm getting the impression tech support isn't very technical today. Let's jump to extremes then, is this only affecting a small number of people in a specific location? Maybe our "USA server" is malfunctioning?

Give that I'm not too technical myself but I know the difference between something that clearly works and something that is completely broken.

EDIT: Then maybe whoever is actually responsible should come forth and try to explain it better? I don't find it funny how malware is already embedded into the program itself and could potentially trigger itself at anytime. Who is to say that something like that hasn't already happened?

There are a couple of different setups*. And each one of them is programmatically the same except for the sponsor/toolbar it presents to the user. All the rest of the code, including the code to check if the checkboxes are ticked or not is the same in all of them. This does not depend on your local. So, again, nothing gets installed if you have unticked the sponsor/toolbar checkboxes.

* and with the latest version there are only 2 that I know of (there used to be more): the LK-setup and the BCH-setup.

The Browser Companion Helper, I remember this too doing something similar and was surprised when I opened Firefox and found it was hijacked by it, but it was easy to simply disable it. Linkury on the other hand was not as forgiving as I said. And yes, I unticked the boxes, the only thing that does not install without my permission is Google Chrome.

On a reminder back there however, I really don't like being accused of being too dense and hasty when we're on the computer, after realizing how delicate technology really is I try my best to be especially careful nowadays.

EDIT: It seems you're just saying the same things repeatedly, so I'll wait for someone else to respond.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cadavre
EDIT: Then maybe whoever is actually responsible should come forth and try to explain it better?

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They will tell you the same thing.

Alos, it is not malware, but adware. Major difference there. But anyways, whatever it is, it is not embedded in the setup, it gets downloaded and installed (if you have ticked the boxes).

And I'm repeating the same thing because there is unfortunatly not much else to say about it. Someone else will most likely say the very same things though.

All I (or anyone else) can suggest to disable/uninstall the sponsor stuff is what has already been said before in this thread and some other similar threads: it is not installed by itself and disable the toolbar/searches in your browser via your browser addons and uninstall the stuff by going to 'add/remove programs' and/or via the Plus! uninstaller (depending on what it is you want to remove).

If you are able to upload that offending setup file somewhere (eg: here) I can take a look at it, but other than that I'm afraid there is nothing else to say about it.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
They will tell you the same thing.

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How do you know that you're just a volunteer.

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
It is not malware, but adware. Major difference there. But anyways, whatever it is, it is not embedded in the setup, it gets downloaded and installed (if you have ticked the boxes).

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No.

"Adwares are the programs which delivers ads to your computer (generally in POP-UP's form). They consume your network."

Whereas:

"Malware is a very general word for software that deliberately harms, restricts, alters, or stops your computer from working properly where the true purpose of the download or installation is hidden or difficult to find and not clearly explained to the user."

That fits Linkury better. If Linkury was attacking my network I'd be in much bigger trouble right now.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
Because there is unfortunatly not much else to say about it. Someone else will most likely say the same things though.

All I (or anyone else) can suggest to disable/uninstall the sponsor stuff is what has already been said before in this thread (and in other similar threads).

If you are able to upload that offending setup file somewhere (eg: here) I can take a look at it, but other than that I'm afraid there is nothing else to say about it.

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Because I'm going to risk keeping that thing on my computer?

I feel there's been no resolution to this, so out of my respect this topic should be locked and preserved for others who seek answers to this issue just to see the kind of help they will receive for it. I can only hope signing up on this forum and go out my way to figure this out will not have my email spammed. Good day.

Hello, I know Cadavre, and we never get these types of problems. You say this is adware, but no ads have popped up nor have we been pestered with anything that even resembles the definition of adware. Malware on the other hand, as defined by Techterms.com is "software programs designed to damage or do other unwanted actions on a computer system". Toolbars are notorious for such things, and why there was an unknown app/company called Linkury in Folder form with several DLL's and other another extension which also ran a background .exe as seen in the Task Manager sounds suspicious to me. A simple and quick Google search on Linkury shows some reviews on it, or tips on how to remove it, which already says it is not a good sign. If you are a volunteer, then who is behind Plus? Wouldn't it benefit to get to the root of the problem? I understand you only know so much, and I thank you for responding, but this is alarming. I've worked with computers for years and I know what is what, and while I realize the possibility of a mistake, this shouldn't have happened to several different people.

As Cookie  and I have already said, nothing gets installed without permission when using the official installer. If you could upload the file you both used to install Plus! we may be able to determine if anything is inherently different with it that may have caused this, however unlikely it is.

It must be said that mistakes can and do happen and it wouldn't be the first time we have had issues with the sponsor (as far as I can remember).

I am not familiar with Linkury and so can't say for definite that it is one of the sponsor "flavours".

Link us to the setup file so that we can check it over and pass it on to the developer team if we do indeed find a problem. It's not that we don't believe you, rather that it is very rare for something like this to happen.

As Cookie has said already, everybody on these forums is a volunteer; although many of us have been around for many years. Whilst we may not have all the answers, we have enough experience to help users with many problems.

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Originally posted by Squi
"software programs designed to damage or do other unwanted actions on a computer system"

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The toolbars don't damage your computer (eventhough it might be hard to uninstall it in some cases). And the actions are not unwanted since you must tick the boxes in order to install it, which implies you want it to do what it does. So, no, not malware...

As I said, I can understand a mishap and clicking something by accident (it has happened in the past to me too, just like anyone else I assume), but that does not make something automatically malware, eventhough I also understand the frustration something like this might bring (I had my big share of hair pulling and shouting at the screen too - still do sometimes - and calling certain stuff 'malware' because it doesn't do what I thought it did... to quite often realize the fault was my own (which doesn't help ease the pain of course)).

quote:

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Originally posted by Cadavre
I can only hope signing up on this forum and go out my way to figure this out will not have my email spammed. Good day.

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nope, you're not going to get spammed. Why would you?

quote:

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Originally posted by Squi
If you are a volunteer, then who is behind Plus?

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Yuna Software, as you can read on the official website.
Some of the programmers are also members of these forums, you can find them here: http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showteam.php

quote:

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Originally posted by Squi
Wouldn't it benefit to get to the root of the problem? I understand you only know so much, and I thank you for responding, but this is alarming. I've worked with computers for years and I know what is what, and while I realize the possibility of a mistake, this shouldn't have happened to several different people.

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Some people have reported the same stuff before, dating back to the very first versions years ago. Each time those people insisted that they didn't ticked the boxes. However, time and again it always came down to not reading the setup pages properly and/or (by accident) (un)ticking the wrong boxes. Each time something like this is reported it is done with a lot of (quite understandable) frustration, but that does not change anything to the fact that the choices were ultimatly done by the users themselfs though.

Know that there is neither some random thing build in which decides to ignore the preference of the user. All the known setups are programmed to not download and install the sponsor if the boxes are unticked, simple as that (and in programming terms it is indeed a simply check, nothing complicated). All setups are also tested for this, not only by the programmers but also by us and other people too. Nobody has ever reported such a problem where the unticked boxes are ignore before, ever. Believe me, if they were ignored, the people responsible for this will hear about it, loudly.

So, if something was installed it is not the fault of those particular known setups, I'm sorry. And again, I understand that it can be very frustrating to hear this if it has happened to you, but it is what it is.

So, despite there were sometimes different problems with (other) sponsors in the past, the "installed by itself" problem like described in this thread was, in the end, always the fault of the user though.

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Anyways, as I said in previous post, if we could take a look at the offending setup it would be very helpfull. Having the exact URL where the setup is downloaded from is even better (note: I'm not talking about http://www.msgplus.net/DownloadMsgPlus.aspx, but the URL it redirects to taken from the http headers). Otherwise there is no other way we can "get to the root of the problem".