advertisement

Weblog:   Is Microsoft a Home Page Hijacker?
Subject:   what else are they going to do?
Date:   2005-03-03 00:42:09
From:   jwenting
Response to: what else are they going to do?

If it did that people would scream that Microsoft anti-spyware is itself spyware.
It's a no-win situation for them, either set it to some default (and what's more logical than using your own site as that default) and get blamed for that or monitor what the page is and reset it to that and get blamed for that.
<br/><br/>
Remember this is Microsoft and there's people who will agitate against them whatever they do...
Full Threads Oldest First

Showing messages 1 through 6 of 6.

  • Preston Gralla photo what else are they going to do?
    2005-03-03 04:47:55  Preston Gralla | O'Reilly AuthorO'Reilly Blogger [Reply | View]

    It should do what every other anti-home page hijacker program does --- keep whatever home page you set, and not do a hijack of its own. Every other anti-hijack program looks at what you've set your home page to, and if something tries to hijack it, keeps your own choice. It's very easy to do. Microsoft AntiSpyware is the only one that instead sends you to MSN.com.
    • what else are they going to do?
      2005-03-04 01:51:53  jwenting [Reply | View]

      Like I said, if it did that you'd complain that it was spyware by snooping into your system to find out what your homepage is...
    • what else are they going to do?
      2005-03-03 15:37:22  NeuralizR [Reply | View]

      Oh and it doesn't send you to msn.com specifically, it sends you to whatever you put in the setting for that, which is just semantics, but... still, figured it was worth pointing out. I think it's more reasonable to say "it's the only one that resets your homepage to whatever you tell it to instead of whatever it was previously set to". but that's just me. ;)
      • Preston Gralla photo what else are they going to do?
        2005-03-03 16:23:06  Preston Gralla | O'Reilly AuthorO'Reilly Blogger [Reply | View]

        Actually, it sends you to MSN.com, no matter what your home page setting is --- that's why I say it hijacks your home page. The only way to have it instead keep your own home page is if you change the setting the way I explained.
    • what else are they going to do?
      2005-03-03 15:34:51  NeuralizR [Reply | View]

      While that may be the case for every other piece of software out there, you can't really argue (based on any recorded evidence) that Microsoft would not be slandered for doing just that, keeping track of what your home page is set to.

      It may be worthwhile to make it an optional feature, so that those "privacy minded" users can opt to let MS store their homepage URL somewhere other than the spot where a user can edit it or just reset the homepage to something generic. But again, this would need to be an option users would ENABLE, just like setting the default home page yourself. Otherwise you know those privacy people would be crying about MS using the non-private option by default. Just like people that complain about checkboxes for receiving mail or submitting anonymous information while completely optional are still set to do those things by default and the user must make an effort to disable them.

      I think, sadly, this is just the way things are on the internet today.

      Actually, the best solution to this would be to disallow setting the browser's home page anywhere except in the browser preferences panel... but that's a completely different discussion. ;)
      • what else are they going to do?
        2005-03-07 20:46:45  vapour [Reply | View]

        Bah. I am fed up with ALL microsoft software. I just spent three hours cleaning an infested windows 2000 box (it was running Microsoft AntiSpyware, AdAware and Norton 2005 when it was hijacked. Crappiest piece of software on the market (Windows OS). I am officially wiping all of it from the PCs in the house.
Showing messages 1 through 6 of 6.