Spyware list

Release 2001/01

Table of Contents

What is "Spyware"?
Where can I get this list?
Credits
How to get rid of "Spyware"
Safe Freeware
Your special attention please…
The list (Indexpage)
 

1. What is "Spyware"?

Freeware and Shareware, two ways for a programmer to bring his/her program(s) under the attention of a large quantum of people, have been making "bad press" lately.

Amongst these two kinds, software  exists that is initially free, but is paid for by placing adds into the program. This kind of software is referred to as "Adware". A while ago was discovered that some of these adware programs contain subroutines in the software that collect data about the internet usage of the user, even if the program isn't used or the program is uninstalled, hence the name "Spyware" was given to this software.

So, Spyware is the name which was given to software that--without the user of the program knowing that the software performs this kind of actions-- traces the user's usage of the internet and sends this information--again without the user knowing this is happening-- to a computer ("Server") designated by the developer of the Spyware software.

By performing these actions, detailed userprofiles may be collected-- without the user's knowledge and approval-- which then can be used for commercial or other purposes. By gathering and sending this information both resources on the user's computer as well as bandwidth on the Internet is abusively used, not to mention the breach of privacy such a userprofile would be.

On the Internet several actions and discussions have taken place, such as:

http://grc.com    - First 'Aureate / Radiate' Spyware listing and development of OptOut, a program to detect and delete Spyware parts.
news.grc.com   - Discussion and reports regarding Spyware and OptOut
alt.comp.freeware  - Discussion and reports regarding Spyware

From the latter discussion the idea of this list arose.
 

2. Where can I get this list?

This list is available at the bottom of this page i.e. :

http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/dspypdf.html

3. Credits

I want to thank everyone who contributes in maintaining, updating and spreading this list, but especially:

Dale Haag for uncovering this "plot" for the first time
Steve Gibson for his opinion on this kind of software and the development of OptOut

alt.comp.freeware, for the discussion regarding (and reports of) Spyware, the ideas and thoughts about this list and the means which the members of this very fine newsgroup provide for making this list available to the large public.
Genna Reeny, for proofing my sometimes poor English and her ideas about the contents.
John Fitzsimons for his HTML version of this list.
SoS (Alan) For being the first one banning Spyware from his Freewarepages
 

4. How to get rid of "Spyware"

The easiest way to get rid of "Spyware" is by using "Optout", available from http://grc.com/files/optout.exe while using this program, keep in mind that the developer of this program, Steve Gibson, will develop this program further to make it compatible with new developments in "Spyware". So a regular check of the program's version could pay-off. As of September 1st 2000 the OptOut program is released as commercially available software.

An alternative to Steve Gibson's OptOut is a fairly new program called "Ad-Aware" which is distributed as freeware and is updated (to cover detecting and removal of more Spyware modules in each new release) quite often in a short time. At the present the version number is 3.61 and it detects Aureate/Radiate, TimeSink/Conducent, Cydoor and Comet Cursor modules. More are planned. The address for this excellent program is http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ it can be found in their freeware section. A regular check for a new version of this program could pay-off as well.

Another way is to keep an eye on alt.comp.privacy, alt.privacy.spyware or alt.comp.freeware for discussions about the removal of this kind of garbage from your system and perform the actions described there manually.
 

5. Safe Freeware

While in the process of making this list, one of the regulars in our newsgroup came up with the idea of devoting a chapter to "How to avoid any kind of trouble with Freeware", in short "Safe Freeware"

The first things that come to mind when I think about the safe usage of any kind of software are Viruses, Trojans and Worms. So the first advice is: be sure to have a good (and recently updated) anti-virus program running on your system BEFORE you attempt to install any kind of software.

There are a quite a number of good antiviral programs, but only a few are free for private usage. The one that we - in alt.comp.freeware - recommend is Inoculate Personal Free Edition, made by Computer Associates Inc. It is available from their website at http://antivirus.cai.com. After (free) registration, a "Customer ID" is e-mailed; the very frequent data files updates can be downloaded then, either manually of automatically from the program.

"To know, is to rule": be sure you know what changes are made to your system files and to the registry when you install ANY program. Several commercial programs will do this, but a freeware alternative again is available: Inctrl4, downloadable from any of the PricelessWare sites in alt.comp.freeware. This program monitors changes to your system's registry files, as well as the files that were copied to the program and system directories on your system's hard disk. This allows you to clear your system thoroughly of unwanted debris when you decide to uninstall a program.

Whenever you have to work in your system's registry files, export the whole registry to a TXT.file in the root-folder of your system. In case your system does crash after you edit the registry, you always can boot to DOS and create a complete registry from the DOS-prompt by typing:

REGEDIT /C Filename.txt

If Inctrl4 wasn't installed on your system, and you have installed and uninstalled a lot of software, another program might come in handy: CleanSys. This program scans your system's hard disk(s) for orphan files from earlier software installs. It then produces a list from which you can select one, several or all files that are to be deleted. These files are then moved to a backup directory, which can be - after a least a month of running your programs - can be deleted from the hard disk.

Now that you have cleaned your hard disk from unwanted files, it's time to check the registry. In the registry the Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000 operating systems keep their settings regarding the users, the hardware and finally the software. Now, not every program deletes their entries when uninstalled, and if you did not have an installation tracking program like Inctrl4 at the time, another program has to come to the rescue: RegClean 4.1 (at the present time only for the Windows 9x operating system) which is available as Freeware from http://www.microsoft.com.

"Prevention is better than curing", the best way to avoid any risks is to download from a known, trusted site. Many of the larger sites, such as ZDNET, choose to list Adware and Spyware software without classification. Trusted private persons, on the other hand, clearly point them out on their sites and the PricelessWare sites have omitted them altogether. To find out if a program is really Freeware, or if it is Adware, your best friend is a site which hosts PricelessWare. Spyware has not been listed there since early March 2000, when the regulars at alt.comp.freeware decided that spyware would no longer be listed on the PriceWare List and all spyware listings were removed!!!

Now everyone knows that humans are quite inventive when it comes to spying on another, so we can expect the spyware software to be much better disguised in the future, thus raising the question: "What to do against it?".

First of all, the PC-user should be able to decide whether a program should or shouldn't have access to the Internet. To achieve this, a good firewall should be installed.  It won't come as a surprise that there is a great Freeware choice: ZoneAlarm from ZoneLabs. It is free for personal use and can be registered from within the program. During the first internet session in which it's active, the program can transmit the registration data to the ZoneLabs server. The program does not only block unwanted outgoing communication, but also blocks portprobing and portscanning and even hack attempts while you're on the internet. This must-have, must-use utility can be downloaded from http://www.zonelabs.com.

As I wrote before: Since the interests are huge, the level of innovation used to disguise a spyware program will be high, so how can the average user of "Freeware" be sure his/hers privacy isn't compromised by the software used for a full 100%? Never!! But we, the internet users, can make it very hard on the spying companies and the ones that leave their software in the hands of these spies, so what to do?

First, verify that a program actually is spyware. Several sources are available to get this kind of information: alt.comp.privacy, grc.privacy, grc.security, and of course our newsgroup: alt.comp.freeware. Also a few websites host (changing) information about spying freeware, so the list may vary from time to time. Users who are well grounded in computer transmissions and analyzing the data could use a "packet sniffer" like WinDump, which is available at: http://netgroup-serv.polito.it/windump/

Second, try the "ultimate cure for spyware" being Steve Gibson's OptOut program, which at the moment is available as freeware from Steve's site at: http://grc.com/files/optout.exe; for those who want more info first, visit http://grc.com/optout.htmor, if you dislike the idea of paying for a program to opt out of spyware contamination, use Ad-Aware instead, this program can be downloaded from the developers site at http://www.lavasoft.deand can be found in the Freeware section of this site. The Ad-Aware program is somewhat larger than the OptOut program, but works as well as the latter and--at this moment--it covers more types of spyware. The interface is quite easy to handle, even for someone new to this matter.

Third, if you want a certain kind of program but you know it's spyware, look for a real freeware alternative. There are thousands of freeware programs and only few are spyware! Use a good search engine or look at the PricelessWare pages. If you can't find it then, post a question to our newsgroup (but please read our FAQ's first before doing so; they can be found at:

Frames version here:

http://geocities.com/SiliconValley/Circuit/9810/FrameSet1.html

NoFrames version here:

http://geocities.com/SiliconValley/Circuit/9810/Framefree.html

DL whole FAQ (zipped):

http://geocities.com/SiliconValley/Circuit/9810/faq.zip

Another FAQ :

http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq

The PricelessWare sites I've been mentioning so often are:

http://www.sover.net/~whoi/Priceless.html
http://home.att.net/~willowbrookemill/pricelessware.html
 

6. Your special attention please…

The programs below have been removed from the list of suspected or confirmed spyware programs. In some cases, a program has been listed here to provide an additional explanation.
 
 

7. The list (Indexpage)

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Date 16/3/01

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