LOP - Printable Version
-Shoutbox (https://shoutbox.menthix.net)
+-- Forum: MsgHelp Archive (/forumdisplay.php?fid=58)
+--- Forum: Messenger Plus! for Live Messenger (/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+---- Forum: WLM Plus! General (/forumdisplay.php?fid=23)
+----- Thread: LOP (/showthread.php?tid=91567)
LOP by screen317 on 07-20-2009 at 12:39 AM
It is very unfortunate that your program attempts to bundle malware with it.
It is unfortunate not only because it seems morally wrong to begin with, but also because the people who download this complain to people like me and my colleagues who have to clean up the mess of malware that a standard installation of Messenger Plus! puts on a computer. We have enough to deal with everyday on our volunteer time removing backdoor trojans and other money stealing malware, but also we have to deal with the adware that comes from this program.
I beg you reconsider. You have a loyal fan base; I know they wont mind.
Regards,
screen317
www.spywareinfoforum.com
RE: LOP by blessedguy on 07-20-2009 at 01:01 AM
quote:
Originally posted by screen317
It is very unfortunate that your program attempts to bundle malware with it.
quote:
Originally posted by Wikipedia
Software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software
With a separated license agreement, and the option to install it or not being very explicit during the instalation, I don't guess Plus!'s optional adware can be considered malware.
quote:
Originally posted by screen317
It is unfortunate not only because it seems morally wrong to begin with,
Is it wrong to try to earn some honest money with your own creation?
quote:
Originally posted by screen317
but also because the people who download this complain to people like me and my colleagues
These same people who didn't care to READ what they were agreeing upon clicking "I Agree" everywhere they can?
quote:
Originally posted by screen317
who have to clean up the mess of malware that a standard installation of Messenger Plus! puts on a computer.
If I recall correctly, in the installer you have to click either I refuse or I agree, so there's no "standart" installation. If I recalled it incorrectly, I'm sure Patchou wouldn't have pre-selected the "I Agree" option.
Also, why don't you ever try to use "Add and Remove Programs" (XP) / "Programs and Features" (Vista / 7) to remove it? Did you know the uninstaller is included?
quote:
Originally posted by screen317
We have enough to deal with everyday on our volunteer time removing backdoor trojans and other money stealing malware, but also we have to deal with the adware that comes from this program.
The adware that comes with this program is COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. Sorry if you didn't bother to check if it was or not.
quote:
Originally posted by screen317
I beg you reconsider.
How about making a "confirmation" page including adware's license and asking if you really want to install it? Oh, forgot, done already.
Sorry if it seems to be a disrespectful text, it wasn't meant to be.
RE: LOP by prashker on 07-20-2009 at 01:10 AM
also, the new version is just an Ask Toolbar and a Homepage change. Both of which (exactly like the old Sponsor) can be removed via Add Remove Programs... (which is something I'd expect you and your colleagues to know, if you are "repairing" machines 
)
Additionally, if you still don't agree to just unchecking the box that installs those items, you can send a large cheque to Patchou so he doesn't have to use this method 
RE: LOP by ShawnZ on 07-20-2009 at 01:38 AM
quote:
Originally posted by blessedguy
With a separated license agreement, and the option to install it or not being very explicit during the instalation, I don't guess Plus!'s optional adware can be considered malware.
he didn't just say malicious -- and I'm pretty sure by no means is lop ever purposefully installed.
quote:
Originally posted by SonicSam
also, the new version is just an Ask Toolbar and a Homepage change.
meh... it's a lot better now, but if you want to be perfectly fair, this is why we don't use daemon tools. if msgplus didn't have such a big monopoly on the messenger extension market, not so many people would be using it.
come on patchou, richard stallman is able to live with a normal income and no luxuries (like cars or haircuts
,) surviving on only the fact that he's leading a life about as fulfilling as it gets (and changing the world!)just turn msgplus into a FOSS project, and it'll make everyone happy! okay, maybe that's asking a bit much -- but drop this sponsor business
RE: RE: LOP by CookieRevised on 07-20-2009 at 02:40 AM
quote:Neither did blessedguy say "malicious". Blessedguy gave the definition of malware and explained why the sponsor isn't malware; "Malware" being the exact word used by the OP.
Originally posted by ShawnZ
quote:he didn't just say malicious
Originally posted by blessedguy
With a separated license agreement, and the option to install it or not being very explicit during the instalation, I don't guess Plus!'s optional adware can be considered malware.
sidenote/comment:
quote:lol.... Why on earth would Patchou, or anyone else for that matter, want to start living like Richard Stallman? It's not for nothing that he is called 'excentric'. I don't see you living like Richard either, eventhough you're a big advocate of 'free software'. I don't see why anybody earning money in an honest way, should change their lifes. Besides, even Richard Stallman finds it more than ok if authors would ask money or have a way to ensure an honest income from their work, as long as their isn't any restriction in usage.
Originally posted by ShawnZ
come on patchou, richard stallman is able to live with a normal income and no luxuries (like cars or haircuts
RE: LOP by ShawnZ on 07-20-2009 at 02:43 AM
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
Neither did blessedguy say "malicious". Blessedguy gave the definition of malware and explained why the sponsor isn't malware; "Malware" being the exact word used by the OP.
but the definition of malware he posted includes "unwanted software"
RE: LOP by screen317 on 07-20-2009 at 02:53 AM
Thank you for the replies everyone. Sincerely, it means a lot...
quote:...except for that^, which was just uncalled for.
Originally posted by toddy
sums it up well
quote:
Originally posted by Wikipedia
Software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software
With a separated license agreement, and the option to install it or not being very explicit during the instalation, I don't guess Plus!'s optional adware can be considered malware.
quote:No, but the creator of Messenger Plus! is not making honest money off of his creation. The only money he gets is off of the installation of the sponsor software, which is not his own creation.
Is it wrong to try to earn some honest money with your own creation?
quote:Correct, these same people. Are you telling me that it is only because of the gullibility of the general population who don't know any better and who do not want this sponsor software, that the adware is still supported? What was this "honest money" you were referring to?
These same people who didn't care to READ what they were agreeing upon clicking "I Agree" everywhere they can?
quote:
If I recall correctly, in the installer you have to click either I refuse or I agree, so there's no "standart" installation. If I recalled it incorrectly, I'm sure Patchou wouldn't have pre-selected the "I Agree" option.
Also, why don't you ever try to use "Add and Remove Programs" (XP) / "Programs and Features" (Vista / 7) to remove it?
quote:I am aware that an uninstaller is included; however, I have always had the policy to never trust uninstallers from the creators of any type of malware.
Did you know the uninstaller is included?
quote:Optional yes, but it relies on the ignorance of the general population. It doesn't have to be pre-checked, because the author knows people will click "I agree" regardless. Is this not exploiting ignorance?
The adware that comes with this program is COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. Sorry if you didn't bother to check if it was or not.
quote:Why not remove the adware all together and not resort to trickery to make "honest money?"
How about making a "confirmation" page including adware's license and asking if you really want to install it? Oh, forgot, done already.
quote:It does not seem that way, and I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this.
Sorry if it seems to be a disrespectful text, it wasn't meant to be.
I will respond to the other posts after I do some testing.. Thank you for the responses everyone, though some of the snide remarks didn't have to be said...
-screen317
Edited to fix quotes.
RE: RE: LOP by robert_dll on 07-20-2009 at 03:16 AM
quote:http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=21598
Originally posted by screen317
I am aware that an uninstaller is included; however, I have always had the policy to never trust uninstallers from the creators of any type of malware.
RE: RE: LOP by CookieRevised on 07-20-2009 at 03:27 AM
quote:Errrr.... hence the term 'sponsor' and 'ads'...
Originally posted by screen317
quote:No, but the creator of Messenger Plus! is not making honest money off of his creation. The only money he gets is off of the installation of the sponsor software, which is not his own creation.
Is it wrong to try to earn some honest money with your own creation?
By your definition, everybody who has ads on their webpage are being dishonest and/or stealing money? Including the children who let their parents and family sponsor them per km they run in that yearly schoolrun? etc... Their is absolutely nothing dishonest about earning money via sponsors.
quote:Errr (again).... It is not because somebody does not read a, VERY visible, mandatory* choice that the author is being dishonest. Nobody is tricked here! If people don't care to read what they install then it is they who need to change their habits. In the real world you also don't go buying and signing stuff without first reading stuff. And before you reply with "but the small print...": it is very clearly stated in 'normal' print, before the EULA (aka small print), what the optional sponsor is and will do. This is a far more honest way of using a sponsor than most other programs on the net!!!!!
Originally posted by screen317
quote:Correct, these same people. Are you telling me that it is only because of the gullibility of the general population who don't know any better and who do not want this sponsor software, that the adware is still supported? What was this "honest money" you were referring to?
These same people who didn't care to READ what they were agreeing upon clicking "I Agree" everywhere they can?
*(in the sense that you must make a choice, nothing is preselected!)
quote:In some circumstances (with real malware) you are correct, but in this case you do far more 'damage' using 3rd party tools since there is not a single 3rd party application which properly uninstalls the optional ad sponsor from C2Media which is/was bundled with Plus!. Not even apps like Spybot S&D, Hijackthis, etc! They all leave traces behind and/or even damage the uninstaller.
Originally posted by screen317
I am aware that an uninstaller is included; however, I have always had the policy to never trust uninstallers from the creators of any type of malware.
Your policy, as a decent PC-repair dude, should be: Check the official documentation and/or official forums and/or other official knowledge bases first, where people base their stuff on facts, not on hear-say or their own incompetents. And use a virtual machine to check if the uninstaller works as it should be for yourself. And if so, use the provided uninstaller! Otherwise, and I am very sorry to say, I don't see you as a real knowledgable PC-repair dude who knows what he is talking about, but instead simply bases his 'knowledge' on hear-say and other (wrong) assumptions.
So, the policy for uninstalling apps should always be to first see if their is a dedicated/included uninstaller... If you don't trust these uninstallers then use a virtuale machine to check it out.
quote:Nope it is not, as it is VERY clearly explained on that same page what is being installed though. There is no trickery involved here. Trickery is when there is no clear and very visible text explaning what is being installed.
Originally posted by screen317
Optional yes, but it relies on the ignorance of the general population. It doesn't have to be pre-checked, because the author knows people will click "I agree" regardless. Is this not exploiting ignorance?
If there was simply an "I agree" and "I don't agree" choice without any other explanation on that same line and page and without any special title on that page, without a second confirmation on the EULA, then you would be correct. But this isn't and never was the case for Messenger Plus!.
PS:
quote:It has been discussed a number of times before though. And each time people come with the same arguments and each time we reply with the same facts. You might wanna search the forums for those previous discussions.
Originally posted by screen317
... to discuss this
RE: LOP by Jesus on 07-20-2009 at 03:36 AM
quote:Nah, toddy is just a bit of an ass sometimes (
Originally posted by screen317
For Christ's sake do you hope to scare me away by continuing to insult me??
u toddy 
)Anyway, as stated before, the LOP sponsor is completely optional and does not necessarily need to be installed in order to use Messenger Plus! Live.
Furthermore, it is neither accepted nor denied by default in the installer, so the user is given a choice.
You called this the exploitation of ignorance, but I ask you now, who's at fault here? Is it the developer who is giving the user an obvious choice on whether or not to support the software or is it the user who is too ignorant (or lazy) to actually read what he's agreeing on?
Anyway, there have been quite a few complaints like yours before. As SonicSam pointed out earlier in this thread, the LOP sponsor is being phased out (or has already been phased out, I'm not sure on that) right now, so less and less people should have problems with it.
EDIT: oh and toddy, you might want to take a look in this old, but still valid thread
RE: RE: RE: LOP by screen317 on 07-20-2009 at 03:51 AM
CookieRevised,
Thank you very much for the feedback. I appreciate it.
quote:Fair point, but I did not claim all who use sponsors or ads are dishonest. The original comment was that he is making "honest money" from his "own creation." All I said was that he is not making money from his creation, but rather, from a sponsor.
Originally posted by CookieRevised
Errrr.... hence the term 'sponsor' and 'ads'...
By your definition, everybody who has ads on their webpage are being dishonest and/or stealing money? Including the children who let their parents and family sponsor them per km they run in that yearly schoolrun? etc... Their is absolutely nothing dishonest about earning money via sponsors.
quote:I understand that it is clear as day. You and I would not install it because we are both conscious about what we install. It is very clear exactly what is going to be installed, for those of us who read the EULA (and the text that appears before the EULA). Unfortunately, in the real world, people do sign for things they don't quite comprehend. It's why people sign up for credit cards and accumulate debts of thousands of dollars, in addition to other similar cases. The population we live with is not the brightest, I'm afraid. However...
Originally posted by screen317
Errr (again).... It is not because somebody does not read a, VERY visible, mandatory* choice that the author is being dishonest. Nobody is tricked here! If people don't care to read what they install then it is they who need to change their habits. In the real world you also don't go buying and signing stuff without first reading stuff. And before you reply with "but the small print...": it is very clearly stated in 'normal' print, before the EULA (aka small print), what the optional sponsor is and will do. This is a far more honest way of using a sponsor than most other programs on the net!!!!!
quote:...it does not matter how clearly it is explained, people are still going to ignorantly click "I accept." No one (that I've met) wants the sponsor software. If people wanted it, they would not come to our forums and complain about popups. Clearly something is not right here if people who do not want the sponsor software are still installing it (by their choice).
Nope it is not, as it is VERY clearly explained on that same page what is being installed though. There is no trickery involved here. Trickery is when there is no clear and very visible text explaning what is being installed.
quote:Fortunately, we use programs which do a better job than HijackThis and Spybot S&D, otherwise you would be right in that they do not do a thorough job of removing the sponsor.
In some circumstances (with real malware) you are correct, but in this case you do far more 'damage' using 3rd party tools since there is not a single 3rd party application which properly uninstalls the optional ad sponsor from C2Media which is/was bundled with Plus!. Not even apps like Spybot S&D, Hijackthis, etc! They all leave traces behind and/or even damage the uninstaller.
quote:Yes that is absolutely right; checking the documentation should be priority. However, myself and my colleagues are not PC-repair professionals. We are volunteers who devote what spare time we have to PC repair. We do not have infinite time to investigate every document and forum for every suspect program in existence. It just isn't feasible. We do what we can to solve the problems of the people who come to us. We have (hidden) discussions from 2004 regarding LOP.com malware and its association with Messenger Plus! Yes, uninstalling it removes it. It's been proven through plenty of testing, regardless of how much or how little we may trust the makers of that.
Your policy, as a decent PC-repair dude, should be: Check the official documentation and/or official forums and/or other official knowledge bases first, where people base their stuff on facts, not on hear-say or their own incompetents. And use a virtual machine to check if the uninstaller works as it should be for yourself. And if so, use the provided uninstaller! Otherwise, and I am sorry to say, I don't see you as a real PC-repair dude who knows what he is talking about, but instead simply bases his 'knowledge' on hear-say and other (wrong) assumptions.
Since that is the case though, why do people still come to our forums and request assistance with it? I suppose this is my ultimate question and hope:
Would it be at all possible for that piece of information (that the sponsor can be uninstalled) to be displayed somewhere more clearly and more obviously, for the less clever among us on the Internet?
RE: RE: LOP by screen317 on 07-20-2009 at 03:56 AM
Thank you for your post, Jesus.
quote:Taking advantage of ignorant/lazy individuals (or anyone) is called exploitation.
Originally posted by Jesus
You called this the exploitation of ignorance, but I ask you now, who's at fault here? Is it the developer who is giving the user an obvious choice on whether or not to support the software or is it the user who is too ignorant (or lazy) to actually read what he's agreeing on?
quote:If this is true, that is splendid news and I will forward it to my colleagues. Could you please provide a reference so I can verify for them?
Anyway, there have been quite a few complaints like yours before. As SonicSam pointed out earlier in this thread, the LOP sponsor is being phased out (or has already been phased out, I'm not sure on that) right now, so less and less people should have problems with it.
Edit: I did see SonicSam's post (thanks SonicSam), but I don't see a reference behind it, and the installation I just did on Windows 2000 didn't offer Ask Toolbar.
RE: LOP by prashker on 07-20-2009 at 04:00 AM
![[Image: dump_31628.png]](http://sonicsam.net/files/dump/dump_31628.png)
RE: LOP by CookieRevised on 07-20-2009 at 05:05 AM
quote:Because, as you said, there are unfortunatly still be people who don't read stuff when they install programs.
Originally posted by screen317
Since that is the case though, why do people still come to our forums and request assistance with it? I suppose this is my ultimate question
Such people come to our forums too, and all we can teach them (as that is our duty/responsebility at that point) is to use the included uninstaller just like you logically would do with any other software, and not to trust upon 3rd party apps or hear-say for stuff like this. And also tell them to read things before they install stuff.
And that's what we expect and hope other 'helpers' on other forums will say and do too.
Unfortunatly, there are still a lot of 'helpers' on other forums which don't know what they're talking about and simply base their stuff on other hear-say and false assumptions and telling people to do the wrong things. And then those unfortunate people sometimes come here with their problems asking for help, or worse, starting insulting us.
Believe me, 'helpers' from other forums asking for a clarification here like you did is a very extremely rare thing.
quote:Has been discussed also though. In any case, it has always been mentionned on that very same page in the install wizard:
Originally posted by screen317
and hope:
Would it be at all possible for that piece of information (that the sponsor can be uninstalled) to be displayed somewhere more clearly and more obviously, for the less clever among us on the Internet?
quote:There is not much more Patchou can do though. Because people who don't read anything, will not read a big red flashing banner either so to speak.
from the install wizard
The sponsor can be removed at any time by launching the uninstaller of Messenger Plus! Live.
Anyways, as mentionned earlier by SonicSam, the C2Media* sponsor is slowly being phased out in favor of another sponsor, Ask.com, which only changes your homepage and/or main search engine and is even easier to uninstall. So problems with the C2Media sponsor should occur less and less frequently anyways.
* "Lop" doesn't exit anymore since a very very very long time.
Anyways, if it all was so dishonest, then Plus! wouldn't be the software it is today; still being used, after 8 years, by millions of people around the world and still growing in numbers. Also, if Patchou was the greedy man that some people like to call him, then he wouldn't program the installer like he programmed it, and wouldn't give hundreds of prizes away every year or so.
Dishonest software has a big tendency to die out rather quickly....
RE: LOP by Nagamasa on 07-20-2009 at 06:13 AM
screen317, if you're saying that people don't read and just press "I accept," how would you word it so that they wouldn't click "I accept?"
"I do not accept the refusal to install the sponsor?"....