App that prevents bundleware/crapware

[TechLady]

From Lifehacker this morning, this is a nice little application that might prevent your less-careful residential clients from getting so much crapware loaded on their systems.

"Unchecky automatically unchecks unrelated offers, both saving you mouse clicks and making it less likely to miss a checkbox of an unwanted offer."

http://unchecky.com

 

[Xander]

Interesting. This is one of those things I'm on the fence about. The majority of the time, these 'infections' are self-inflicted because they've not read the screens. I have been, over the last few months, telling every customer to watch out for these checkboxes and such while installing things.

Do I install one extra software to run in the background (which may or may not catch every thing it says it will get) and risk losing business ... or give them warning and, IF they shoot themselves in the foot, come and clean up once in a while?

Maybe this will be something I start to install on my RMM residentials as part of a value-added protection.

Never mind - Vipre just blocked it as "Adware Installer"

 

[TechLady]

I haven't tried it myself yet, but I suspect it's imperfect and besides, you know how it goes...they ALWAYS find a way to mess up their system no matter what safeguards you put on

The bonus for us is maybe it will give us a chance to address other, more pressing problems a user is having on their PC instead of wasting time removing all the crap.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Interesting.
If it's good....and functions as promised, without side effects..makes it a no brainer especially for those that do monthly support contracts. Because when it comes to monthly support clients, the less effort/work you have to do for them, the better off you are. So less time spent cleaning up bloatware that accumulates over time, win-win!

 

[JustInspired]

Never mind - Vipre just blocked it as "Adware Installer"

Whoops! Guess that's that then.

 

[Encrypted Existence]

Never mind - Vipre just blocked it as "Adware Installer"

Chrome threw a fit when I tried to download it and said that it was not a commonly downloaded file and suggested that I discard.

 

[Xander]

Chrome threw a fit when I tried to download it and said that it was not a commonly downloaded file and suggested that I discard.

Missed that the first time as I'd done my DL via D7. DLing it directly got the same result as you.

 

[TechLady]

Came up clean on Virus Total. I'm not worried about the CAT-QuickHeal result, whatever the hell that is.

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/...37ee34c1aa4a12798bbd2b4a3d8e343c4db/analysis/

 

[nlinecomputers]

Your link doesn't show a clean result for me.

Several reports of Trojan.GenericKD.1425877

 

[TechLady]

Seems to be linking to wrong file.

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/...461e5bf3e9372363a83455dceb577e3eb66/analysis/

You might try a virustotal upload of it yourself and see if you get same results...I'd be interested.

 

[Xander]

Seems to be linking to wrong file.
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/...eb66/analysis/

You might try a virustotal upload of it yourself and see if you get same results...I'd be interested.

Still getting the same result. The earlier link's filename doesn't match (but I'm really sure it did yesterday.)

 

[FremontPC]

There's also Toolbarblocker. Just uploaded it to VirusTotal and it looks to be clean. Czech, so it kinda makes me cringe....

 

[nlinecomputers]

Same results 6/48 fail with the same virus as before.

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/...72363a83455dceb577e3eb66/analysis/1385831243/

 

[TechLady]

Oh dear, that is not good. Just notified the site I saw it on.

Some people are saying false positive likely, but half a dozen flags crosses the comfort zone for me. Also, a few people mentioned it didn't seem to do much...sigh...

Guess we'll still have removal business!

 

[TechLady]

The author of Unchecky has responded here: http://www.ghacks.net/2013/11/27/un...party-offers-software-installations/#comments

 

[Xander]

Interesting, Angela. So he's saying that it's flagging the virus lists because it pushes info into the Hosts file? He doesn't really address the flagging aspect directly.

FWIW, though, it's showing up in my AV as flagging for "OpenCandy (fs) Adware.Installer". Would something that adds to one's Hosts be flagged under OpenCandy?