Shoutbox

MSGPlus has been mentioned in WinXPNews see: WinXP News Article

Unfortunately it is about the toolbar installed when accepting the sponsor, but Hey it was mentioned.  I have sent in a reply to inform them of their misunderstanding on this.

So, where else have people seen MSGPlus! mentioned?

If anyone cares I just emailed them about this so maybe they will have a better understanding of it.

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Originally posted by Matty
    I would like to take this time to give you some insite on the Optional Sponsor program from Messenger Plus!. The Optional Sponsor program is just that, an OPTIONAL sponsor. The sponsor is made by Lop.com. Now your going to say wow Lop.com is the worst spyware developers and I agree, but don't stop reading there ok read on. The sponsor application has been trimmed down from what other programs get. Cyril (Patchou) cares about his users there for demanded that the sponsor make very minimal changes to the system. A toolbar is added, desktop icons added, favorites added and the home page is changed. What program do you know ONLY does this? I can remember when Beta testing Plus!2 the sponsor forgot to remove a certain part that changed your domain and network you were on and I guarantee you that this will never happen again.

    When people complain about a trojan included in the setup it is simply the Sponsor installer which AVG, and only AVG, detect it this way. Patchou spoke with AVG and they have no intention on changing it. Now onto the other part of this article... "assures you that it doesn't contain any type of spyware or Trojan, many users have reported that the MySearchNow toolbar was installed when they installed Messenger Plus! and that the toolbar is definitely adware, if not spyware". The sponsor program is adware and nothing more. Spyware records information about your surfing habbits, displays advertisments, causes multiple apps to run in the background using large amounts of resources. This in which the sponsor application does none of.

    On the offical Messenger Plus! Forum (http://shoutbox.menthix.net/) we have the proper steps on removing the sponsor which are to completly remove Messenger Plus! and reinstall without the Sponsor, if by anychance you used some 3rd party application like Ad-Aware or Spybot search and destroy then Plus! will try to repair the sponsor program upon uninstall if it fails you have to reinstall Plus! with the sponsor then uninstall it again, and if wanted reinstall without the sponsor.

    I hope you guys learned a bit about the sponsor application from this email as there is nothing wrong with a person trying to make a living from something that is his life correct?

    I also included a zip package of the different sponsor windows included in Plus! that will make more sense. You see the sponsor isn't a bad program, and this coming from a person who has to install it with every build that is emailed to me.

Thanks for your time.

Yours Truly,
Matty
Plus! Beta Tester

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Good job Matty. We need people to be our eyes and ears for misconceptions about Plus! and the sponsor. I really wish there was another way for Patchou to make a living but.....c'est la vie (such is life).

not much of a poster here, although i read quiet a bit. and by far the most annoying ones are when people complain about the advertisment banner thingie. i guess some people just dont read when they install, or quiet understand.. and that article was by far the most annoying thing about the advertisment i've ever read., anyways., *throws his two cents* thats all i can think of saying!

Thank you for that Matty, I appreciate it.

It actually is really getting to me when people are moaning about the ad-banner, its quietened down a bit now that the new auto page thing is up. Matty, at the start of your email it looks a little bit threatening as if you're angry with them, thats a bit of a mistake in a letter, try not to come across that way dude, they might think its just junk from a n00b or something.

I think this is actually appauling, and its just plain dumb, why are they saying things like then, when some of them know full well that its not spyware, and its just a minimal package if you do install it, they're just plain rude.

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Originally posted by traxor
I think this is actually appauling, and its just plain dumb, why are they saying things like then, when some of them know full well that its not spyware, and its just a minimal package if you do install it, they're just plain rude.

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in the Q&A, i don't believe they claim msgPlus as a spyware.  However the person that asked the question (Ben C.?) did refer the sponser as spyware.  But anyone who "accidently" installed the sponser are n00bs anyway.  And we know n00bs can't tell the difference between spyware and adware.  So Traxor's "when some of them know full well that its not spyware" is not completely true.  Besides, the answer does not refer the sponser spyware.  However, I do agree that the part that says "often the price you pay is getting something you don't want along with the program you do want" is incorrect due to the availability of the option to choose not to install the sponser program. But other than that, the article IMO is pretty acurate.

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Originally posted by gnownoskcid

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
I think this is actually appauling, and its just plain dumb, why are they saying things like then, when some of them know full well that its not spyware, and its just a minimal package if you do install it, they're just plain rude.

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in the Q&A, i don't believe they claim msgPlus as a spyware.  However the person that asked the question (Ben C.?) did refer the sponser as spyware.  But anyone who "accidently" installed the sponser are n00bs anyway.  And we know n00bs can't tell the difference between spyware and adware.  So Traxor's "when some of them know full well that its not spyware" is not completely true.  Besides, the answer does not refer the sponser spyware.  However, I do agree that the part that says "often the price you pay is getting something you don't want along with the program you do want" is incorrect due to the availability of the option to choose not to install the sponser program. But other than that, the article IMO is pretty acurate.

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I said that some of them do know, not all of them know, there are the select few that just don't understand the difference between the two, its not their faults.

You can uninstall the adware easily, but when people do install it and don't know what they do, we're here for them .

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Originally posted by winxp news

ANSWER: Messenger Plus! is a third party add-on product for MSN Messenger. It is not made by Microsoft, but by Patchou. It extends your Messenger software by providing statistics about your contact list, letting you filter words from messages you send and receive, resend recent messages, search within conversations, and use advanced logging. It's a free program, and you might recall the old saying: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. When it comes to free software, often the price you pay is getting something you don't want along with the program you do want. Although its Web site (http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=041012QC-Messenger_Plus) assures you that it doesn't contain any type of spyware or Trojan, many users have reported that the MySearchNow toolbar was installed when they installed Messenger Plus! and that the toolbar is definitely adware, if not spyware. So far, the only solution we've found is to uninstall the entire Messenger Plus! program.

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Yeah, it tells you about all of the features, oh look herse the bitching, which means i start to moan. Yes there is such thing as a free lunch in the world of computers, its a sponsor program.. and its OPTIONAL. It does not contain any spyware and is not a trojan, its adware, and avg thinks its a trojan, my search now toolbar is installed if you accept the agreement, which click-happy people do, and people who are sensible don't. You can uninstall and reinstall it without accepting the sponsor agreement.!

This is screwed stupid Microsoft saying that MSG Plus! had spyware in it maybe we should send the n00b in question and the writer of the response a screen shot of the installer with a big red ring around the sentence that says : I refuse don't install msg plus with the toolbar.