Hi Folks,
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NOTE CORRECTION BELOW: (This experience was Foxit, not Comodo)
Yep .. I installed the Comodo firewall (omitting the anti-virus) recently on one puter, and, if I remember properly, I felt that the wording and the way the checks and unchecks was handled was particularly tricky. That they had abused 'the system'. And, if I remember, I ended up doing a full Ask toolbar uninstall with Revo, apparently successfully.
(Note: this does not match the discussion on the page given, which has an Ask Toolbar embedded in a Safe Surf thing, which I definitely would not have allowed .. I use Web of Trust for that and if I saw the words Safe Surf I would try to continue with an uncheck or I would have aborted the install. If I remember, the problem I saw was that Comodo had made it appear that you were OK'ing the general license, even if unclicking some other stuff, but what looked at a moderate glance like the simple install had more involved. It is possible I saw the work "license" and missed "Safe Surf".)
If someone has the pics involved it would be helpful for precise discussion. Maybe I will take the pics shortly, although best I would also check if the file where I loaded about a week ago is the same as what is downloadable from Comodo today. In fact, better yet, I likely have the installer I used on my work puter and can take the pics there.
To confuse the issue a bit more, perhaps I am mixing my Comodo experience with another .. so I am looking for my uninstall log, if I have one .. (I'll find the Ask uninstall and then use file creation dates to find out what was installed before.) No obvious log in Revo, perhaps Event viewer has more info.
(ADDED: Yes, newsflash, that was probably my Foxit (PDF reader) experience. PDF Xchange-viewer seemed to be crashing Firefox so I went back to Foxit. So with Comodo now I am really curious how good or bad is the installer, I probably did say no there without incident. Softpedia does list Foxit as "Adware", and I think that is a 100% appropriate way of describing ad-installer-pull products. (The company would not be giving them $$ unless they thought a lot of folks would install without careful thought.) Note that Softpedia today still does have some other Comodo products, like the System Cleaner, available, saying those are Freeware.)
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This is a bit of the "slippery slope" syndrome as well .. once it is ok for unrelated adjunkware to be offered, there will be an incentive to try to trick the user -- even if the default is unchecked, or even if a user is savvy enuf to do some unchecking.
While I am happy to see that Softpedia is taking an integrity road here (good work, guys) there is a bit of an irony, since they have a reputation for lifting copy from others. I remembered that from before, about two years ago, so I just put in a couple of googles and this one :
Softpedia "steal content"
Surprised even me, since after one DonationCoder reference (app103 in August 2007) about this problem.
https://www.donation...index.php?topic=9450Article: Please don't steal this Web content
You also get an article from a net-friend (Brandon Staggs) whose software I use .. (I had no idea that he had been hit by this problem as well).
http://www.brandonst...-hurting-developers/More download site scams - stealing content and hurting developers
Note, this goes back to 2007, I have not found the original articles I read from other developers about this. Overall, I wonder if anything has improved.
Generally, beyond the content-lifting problem, I do not see that Softpedia is very reliable, they rarely have the types of excellent comments that you see especially in Snapfiles and Fileforum. Snapfiles and Fileforum (and Major Geeks) have an integrity quotient way above Softpedia in my book. There are a number of aspects of weighing these companies (e.g. do they allow the google scareware ads, a place where the Major is deficient, do they give bogus awards without substantive reviews) -- so perhaps, if Softpedia would clean up their act on the lifting copy, I could reconsider them as a download site. However, as of now, I softpedal around Softpedia.
Suggestion: improve their own house while they encourage Comodo to improve theirs.
Shalom,
Steven Avery
PS.
I kept the Comodo firewall on, since I really want to compare it with Online Armor free. However, I may have to reconsider .. a "cease and desist" letter .. stop taking a consistent integrity stance .. sheesh ! Amazing. Tacky to the max. The Comodo CEO was recently on Paltalk, he may be a semi-regular there, maybe he needs some public confrontation. If he wants to get the egg off his face, one way would be for him to dialog directly with Softpedia and throw his lawyers in the Comodo-clink. A month with bread and water, or a new set of lawyers.
