SweetIM Spyware comes now free with MyPhoneExplorer

Anmeldedatum: 21.08.2012 Beiträge: 6

I have been using MyPhone Explorer for a year or two now and have found it to be a great little program.

However when I installed the latest version 1.8.4 it also spread a horrible spyware program called SweetIM all over my PC even though I had declined the option to have it installed.

It installed itself as an add on to Firefox and Chrome and also tried to do the same in Internet Explorer. I think I've got ride of it using Spybot but I'm not very happy with FJ Software for doing this and will avoid installing any further updates to the program.

Verfasst am: Mi Aug 22, 2012 00:11

Cool down. MyPhoneExplorer does show advertisments in the setup since 5 years, that is not new. The advertisment can be ALWAYS declined, if it was not possible then send me a screenshot. My advertisment partner does handle which products are promoted i do not check every product myself.

I tested now SweetIM and yes, it is detected by Kaspersky as Malware, so i decided to ban SweetIM from the promotion list until i know if its a false alert or not.

PS.: I do not allow in general multiple posts about the same topic in my forum so i deleted your double posts.

Anmeldedatum: 22.08.2012 Beiträge: 1

Hi there. I really like MyPhone Explorer - it helps me keep track of my appointments across 3 computers. I am having a similar problem to Rick.

When I installed ver 1.8.3 I did not read the installation info carefully enough and accidentally installed the snap.do toolbar. I understand that agreeing to offer these toolbars helps you to keep this software free, but snap.do is *HORRIBLE*. I cannot uninstall it and looking around the internet I find that other people are having the same problem. I did all the things described to remove it and now I cannot find anywhere that I can remove/disable it anymore, but every time I open a browser, there it is. The Snap.do FAQ says I should re-install the software and try again.

I think it would be good to ban this from your promotion list.

Anmeldedatum: 21.08.2012 Beiträge: 6

FJ - I'm quite cool but thank you for your concern. I thought I had opted not to install SweetIM. I certainly remember choosing 'Decline' at the last stage as I recall thinking doing this might also stop me installing MyPhoneExplorer. The installation process of these types of add-ons always seem to be deliberatley deceptive and designed to catch the user unawares. This is irritating at the best of times and even more so when one discovers that it is spyware that isn't easily removed.

If it has been included in MyPhoneExplorer's installation package for the past 5 years I've obviously managed to avoid it in the past. I'll certainly take more care in the future.

Spybot also displays a warning that SweetIM is spyware & thankfully it seems to have removed a further six parts of this program which were still present even after I had indivually removed the add-ons from Chrome and Firefox and uninstalled the program through Windows.

I have no problem with you deleting the post in the German section. I just wanted to make sure it was read.

I think MyPhoneExplorer is a superb program (certainly compared with HTC Sync) and I also hope to use it with my new Samsung shortly.

Thanks for your response.

Anmeldedatum: 22.08.2012 Beiträge: 3

luckily i read the installer as i put the software on and as soon as i saw these spam adverts / malware items i worried about the quality of the software. I know you need to get paid but seriously, using spam / malware bundled with your software is not the best way to go about it.

Luckily you are proactive but it can be very worrying to see spam / malware bundled with software that looks legitimate as it can make you look like a scammer too.

Verfasst am: Mo Sep 03, 2012 00:30

Who says what is spam and what not ? There are enough people which will say everything is spam as soon it gets advertised in other installers

Anmeldedatum: 21.08.2012 Beiträge: 6

FJ hat Folgendes geschrieben:

Who says what is spam and what not ? There are enough people which will say everything is spam as soon it gets advertised in other installers

Good question. Personally I rely on programs such as Spybot to tell me.

I also know that I dislike installers that try to include programs that people haven't been looking for and that rely on users moments of inattention to inflect themsleves on their computers.

Verfasst am: Di Sep 04, 2012 01:08

Zitat:

Personally I rely on programs such as Spybot to tell me.

Exactly this is the problem. There are about 30 potential advertised tools and about 50 diffrent antivirus programs. Its impossible to track daily if a antivirus tool decides to detect a tool as spam cause they change the detection rules very often. But if i see that a tool does really bad, unwanted things then i'll remove it.

Anmeldedatum: 21.08.2012 Beiträge: 6

FJ hat Folgendes geschrieben:

Zitat:

Personally I rely on programs such as Spybot to tell me.

Exactly this is the problem. There are about 30 potential advertised tools and about 50 diffrent antivirus programs. Its impossible to track daily if a antivirus tool decides to detect a tool as spam cause they change the detection rules very often. But if i see that a tool does really bad, unwanted things then i'll remove it.

I understand your problem. In an ideal world it wouuld be possible for you to release your program without these tools but I appreciate you probably need the income that they bring in order to continue development.

It would also be nice if the default actions on installation did not also install the unwanted tools ie you had to specifically tick boxes if you do want it but I imagine the advertisers would not accept this.

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