Posted on Friday, EDT by Edward.
This is a topic I felt compelled to write about. Let me start off by saying it?s a great piece of software; by no means am I deterring people from using it. However I do feel people are quick to jump the gun to yell SPY WARE SPY WARE!!!!
Some people go so far as to send hateful emails to the creators of these software programs. Don?t get me wrong some do deserve this, but wait what if it?s a mistake? This happened to me more than on a few occasions where the first time myself I jumped the gun.
Here is one example I found regarding a program called Ghrone at
hxxp://software.garoo.net/ that people jumped the gun on. In response to the emails he must have received, this author posted this on his website:
?Note to Ad-Aware users: seems that my program isn't the only thing called Ghrone out there. If you're worried to see that Ad-Aware lists Ghrone when scanning your registry, simply unckeck Ghrone's "Load at startup" option. Voilą, no more warning (if it really were spyware it wouldn't be so easy to remove, would it?)?
He makes a good point; it would not be that easy. No program is perfect including Ghrone or Adaware. People made it, and people are not perfect. So, the next time you run across a possible spyware, please contact the author of the program it might be a false alarm, then again it may not be. If the author claims there is no spyware and makes no changes to the program contact Adaware and inform them of your contact with the author and request that it be looked over. This also applies to changes the author did make.
Adaware users don?t forget humans made it and humans are not perfect. Why do you think they make newer versions of the program, for the fun of it?
I use adaware myself, but just like a gun you have to use it responsible. Don?t jump the gun until you look into it. In this case I tested this particular program three times. Once as the author suggested to not set off Adaware: it did not. The second time not doing as the author suggested and having it run at startup. To my surprise it did not show up in Adawares scan. The third times rebooting my pc, then running the program at startup while scanning with Adaware; again it did not show up.
Either one of two things happened. The author updated the program or Adaware corrected this possible mistake. Either way it passed the test. I even went further to test the program for viruses just for safety sake--it passed.
Please remember at the time of this post this information was accurate, but may have changed due to newer versions of either program.
In short don?t judge a book by its cover.
Last edited by Fisher at Aug 13 2002, 03:14 PM
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