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Sneaky TorrentSpy bundling...

· · Computers , Security

Sunbeltblog is talking about torrentspy, which has licensed their own version of Rufus, a bittorrent client. All well and good, but... they've decided to bundle WhenU SaveNow *(adware) with THEIR ver…

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Avery J. Parker

IT veteran, maker educator, and author of Network Ninja, 3D Printing Mastery, and AI Workflow Mastery. Business IT: Diversified Tech Solutions.

Sunbeltblog is talking about torrentspy, which has licensed their own version of Rufus, a bittorrent client. All well and good, but... they've decided to bundle WhenU SaveNow *(adware) with THEIR version of Rufus. This has ticked off the writers of Rufus among others.


What's more, they haven't disclosed the bundling of adware with their version of Rufus until after you've downloaded it. WhenU IS listed in Add/Remove programs and has a working uninstaller so it could be worse, it's still a bit frustrating for those that fight popups.

They report that most antispyware software will remove WhenU, although lavasoft has recently removed it from their lists. (Yesterday)

Rufus is under the MIT license (an open license). I wonder as open source software improves/is more prevelant, will we see more companies/groups release "ad supported versions" of GPL products? I doubt the idea would take hold when the original is available, but if they provide source code, and give some other benefit to the software then what is to keep a software packages reputation from being drug through the mud by an adware/spyware pusher?

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