Re: Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Thanks for this, Norman. I'm greatly relieved to see there are opt-outs for AOL Browser and Toolbar.
--
~PA Bear

N. Miller wrote: 
On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:05:31 -0400, PA Bear wrote:

Yuck!  What hath God wrought?!

<QP>
AIM [v5.9] Is Now Your Window to the Web

With the new AIM, your favorite Web sites and features are always just a
click away in the new **AOL Explorer** [emphasis added] window, thanks to
convenient, built-in browsing features like:

. Spyware Quick Scan: Checks your computer for a selected number of spyware
and adware programs that may interfere with your online
experience....Relax - your computer is scanned every few minutes for the
worst performance-sapping and identity-stealing spyware programs.
</QP>
http://www.aim.com/get_aim/win/latest_win.adp?aolp

We're already beginning to see default browser being hijacked to "AOL
Explorer" (e.g., clicking on links in email message).


Has anyone actually tried it? Compared it with Yahoo! Messenger 7.0?

I fired up AIM, and got the pop-up advertising the upgrade to Version
5.9.3861 (I was on an earlier 5.9). As I proceeded through the menus, I was
presented with a screen with two pre-checked options. I stopped here and
read the options.

Item 1:  Did I want the AIM (AOL?) browser? I cleared the check from the
box.

Item 2:  Did I want the AIM MS Internet Explorer toolbar? I cleared the
check from the box.

At this point I proceeded with the install. When the install was complete,
I checked my Internet Options security settings; free.aol.com was still in
the Restricted sites zone (there was a brief period during the Netscape
6.x/AIM 4.x/ICQ period when AOL would place it in the Trusted sites zone,
overriding the personal choice of the computer operator. People raised a
stink in the Netscape newsgroups, and that behavior has since ceased).
There were four shortcut icons linking the AOL service installer:
"C:\Program Files\AOD\AolAod.exe" -activate

Shortcuts and installer easily removable. My browser start page is still:

Firefox (default browser):
file:///F:/My%20Pictures/V-W-X-Y-Z/Yamaneko/Kabegami%20Koubou/Mana-musume%20Ito/maya20_800.png

MS Internet Explorer:
F:\My Pictures\V-W-X-Y-Z\Yamaneko\Kabegami Koubou\Mana-musume
Ito\maya23c_1024.jpg

Mozilla:
file:///F:/My%20Pictures/V-W-X-Y-Z/Yamaneko/Kabegami%20Koubou/Mana-musume%20Ito/maya23d_800.png

Netscape 7.2:
file:///F:/Profiles/Norman/My%20Documents/My%20Pictures/A/Atene%20no%20Mori/mero1.jpg

Opera:
file://localhost/F:/My%20Pictures/V-W-X-Y-Z/Yamaneko/Mana-musume/maya2005-2.jpg

I surfed to a site with a mailto: link, and clicked on it. I got a Pegasus
Mail 4.21c session, complete with a message compose window pre-addressed to
the email address in the mail link.

By contrast, when I got the Yahoo! Messenger alert to upgrade to Yahoo!
Messenger with Voice (7,0,0,437), things weren't quite what they seemed. I
got into the install process, and had the option to use either a Standard
install, or a Custom install. I read the descriptions. No warnings about
what the "Standard" install entailed; just the usual, "This is optimal for
most users" type of statement. Talk about intrusive; this installed a
number of items I had no desire to have installed; BHO in MSIE, home page
reset, a couple of extra goodies in the Add/Remove programs list. Yikes!

I uninstalled everything, had an issue with a missing .dll on boot, System
Restore was hosed; cleaned the registry, cleaned all ypgr files, and
reinstalled Yaho0! Messenger version 6. Finally, after a couple of hours of
swearing at Yahoo!, I was back to a normal system configuration. Being the
glutton for punishment sort of Lab Rat that I am, the next time I started
Yahoo! Messenger, and got the upgrade notice, I proceeded again. This time
I selected the "Custom" install. Now I got to see everything listed that
Yahoo! wanted to install. I unchecked ***ALL*** of the extras. This time, I
got all that I wanted; just the basic Yahoo! Messenger client. Whew!

I would worry more about Yahoo! than about AOL, at this point. And yes, for
those who will scope out my IP address, I am an SBC Yahoo! DSL Service
customer. But I don't have anything SBC-Y branded as software. The only
Yahoo! application in place is the basic IM client, and an HP-Yahoo! BHO
installer; I used it once, decided it was more trouble than it was worth,
and removed it. But the purple ball with the yellow, "My" in it, over the
"My Yahoo! for HP" shortcut name looks kind of cool. So it remains on the
desktop. 

.