What is in your P2P program?

I have rambled on about spyware on people's machines here many times in the past, most recently with my discussion of how to remove spyware from your machine.

One of the very best ways to get a lot of spyware on your machine is to install a P2P program. Not only do they generally immediately install all kinds of spyware on your machine, the things download may also include spyware or other malware like viruses and trojans. Great fun.
Whenever I go to someone's machine who has been complaining about spyware, the three most common things I will find are either:
1) Casino software. If you use a good/reputable place, then this isn't an issue. But if you use a place which is slightly shadier, then they might look to make an extra buck off of you with spyware.
2) WeatherBug or similar things. Items you install to check the weather for you - I suppose for people who don't have access to doors, windows, or a web browser, that might be useful. But how often do you really need to know the temperature and weather outside immediately and you can't wait for a page to load and tell you, or just walk to the window/door and check? Apparently many people can't handle that and they install the monitor into the taskbar (to be fair, there are other applications which when you install them, they install this as well).
3) P2P programs. On the surface these are great. There is the noble file sharing effort of legitimate and legal files and that is something that most anyone can respect. Then there is the grey area of music sharing which greatly angers the music industry, but has its share of proponents (not to mention anyone loves free music). And then there is the "warez", illegal copies of software which you would normally have to pay for, but you can find for free on P2P shares. The problem is that now many of the warez copies have trojans in there of various levels of naughtiness.
Often a wonderful combination of the above.

Nearly all of the P2P programs will install extra spyware with it so that the people who make the software to handle the P2P system, and in some cases maintain a network related to it, can make money.

ZeroPaid lists all of the P2P programs for various OSes and rates them as to their popularity. And here is a page which details how much extra crap is put on your system with each P2P client.
Generally, the amount is "an absolute ton" except apparently for LimeWire.

If you really want to avoid spyware, one of the best things you can do is never install a P2P client. Second best, if you really must have one, install LimeWire.

I have told this to countless clients regarding their home systems, and inevitably they always go and install it all back in again, have problems again, and come to me. These days I now turn them away and tell them that if they aren't willing to change their ways, I am not willing to help them. Not even for money.
(To be fair, 99% of the time it is a son/daughter living at home that is installing the software on the machine, and it is the parents coming to me about the problems. I can remember being in high school and college. Someone asking me to stop doing something was akin to them conversing with a wall - a wasted effort.)

Posted by Eric at March 10, 2005 11:41 AM | TrackBack