How-To Geek
Here’s What Happens When You Install the Top 10 Download.com Apps
We installed the top 10 apps from Download.com, and you’ll never believe what happened! Well… I guess maybe you might have a good guess. Awful things. Awful things are what happens. Join us for the fun!
Windows software downloads are a mess. Many programs try to drag adware and other malicious junk onto your computer. Even... [Read Article]
We’ve been railing against freeware download recommendations for years, and recently we taught you how to test any software safely using a virtual machine. So we thought, why not have some fun and see what really happens if you download software like a regular clueless user might?
For the purpose of this experiment, we’re going to just click through all regular installation screens with the default options using a fresh virtual machine. And we’re going to install ten applications from the most popular downloads list. And we’re going to assume the persona of a regular non-geek user.
Why would we choose Download.com? Because their policies page states clearly that they do not allow malicious software on the site, and further that they do NOT accept any software that contains the following:
Software that installs viruses, Trojan horses, malicious adware, spyware, or other malicious software at any point during or after installation.
Software that installs without notice and without the user’s consent.
Software that includes or uses surreptitious data collection.
Software that diverts or modifies end users’ default browsers, search-engine home pages, providers, security, or privacy-protection settings without the users’ permission.
Software that installs in a concealed manner or denies users an opportunity to read the license agreement and/or to knowingly consent to the installation.
Software that induces installation by making false or misleading claims about the software or the software publisher.
I mean, with all those protections in place from the trusty people over there at CNET, why would anybody worry? I mean, CNET News is a trusted source, right? Right.
Danger! Do NOT Try This at Home!
We’ve long railed against registry cleaners and system tuners as useless products that waste your money, but how do you... [Read Article]
Seriously, we don’t recommend doing this at home on your primary PC, unless you want to make your computer a smoking pile of useless. If you do want to try it, make sure to use a virtual machine.
Time to begin. But where to begin?
The first thing we did was head straight to the Windows downloads page and take a look at their Most Popular Downloads. The list seems puzzling, almost like it’s not really the real list. Why would almost everybody download… YAC? Have you used YAC? It’s… a bunch of YAK. This list is suspect and never seems to change. That’s suspect. Oh well, onward.
This list is very helpful to know what not to install.
The plan is to download and install the top 10 apps, but as you can see in the list, the top two apps are both antivirus, and since we aren’t crazy people, we’re not going to install more than one active antivirus at a time. And despite a lapse in judgement by Avast in the past, we still prefer Avast over AVG (the Avast people were up-front and honest in response to our article and their product is just better in our testing). So we’re going to install that one and skip AVG. Surely that will be free from any bundled crapware, right?
Bundled software is just like In-App Purchases on mobile: Here to stay.
Well… it’s not crapware. Dropbox is awesome. But yeah, the bundling starts here. Free software vendors make so much more money by bundling other software than they do by selling subscriptions that it’s pretty much the only business plan that anybody can consider using. At least Avast is bundling something good, so we can’t really argue with it.
Now that we have Avast running, it’s time to head down the list and install KMPlayer… wait, what’s that “Installer Enabled” all about? Oh well, it’s in light gray text so I guess it’s not important.
It’s the mark of the beast.
They sure do have a lot of terms and conditions pages in this installer. It’s a good thing that people have been trained to always read the terms and conditions, because otherwise you might agree to something insane like allowing yourself to become a HumancentiPad, or even worse, like installing Spigot’s browser hijacking extensions.
9 out of 10 dentists agree, this page is confusing.
Hmm, the next terms and conditions page says something about a PC Cleaner. Well maybe that can help clean up the nonsense that we just accidentally installed in the last step, right? Two wrongs might make a right after all.
That’s weird, we finished all those other screens and now we have another installer. It’s almost like that first installer was completely useless and somebody should be punished. I guess we should just click to Agree and install this one, because that Skip button looks like it’s disabled anyway. There’s no way you could click on it, right? And it’s not like clicking a single button is going to infect us with the awful Trovi browser-hijacking adware.
I wonder how this browser hijacker will get along with the other one.
Once we clicked through, we ended up with an error page for some reason as it all hung up. We’re not sure what WajamPage.exe is, but after a quick Google, it becomes clear that it’s yet another browser hijacker and we’re lucky it didn’t install. That’s right, we’ve installed one non-antivirus app from CNET Downloads so far, and we’ve been presented with three browser hijackers and one fake registry cleaner. They are nothing if not efficient.
After clicking through the installer and finishing, PRO PC CLEANER from the previous step installed itself… started running a scan… and then TALKED OUT LOUD TO US. It literally yells to you through your speakers and tells you that your PC is completely full of errors and needs to be repaired. And it does this all the time, randomly. I guess nobody told them that this was a brand-new installation of Windows.
BEHOLD, YOUR COMPUTER SPEAKETH: GIVE US MONEY!
Next up was YAC. The installer was simple, and seconds later… we had some little window on the screen that was tracking something, and a new source of NON-STOP useless notifications. Every little thing that every app does appears to be monitored… and allowed. YAC is soooo helpful. /sarcasm.
These YAC notifications disappear in seconds, almost like they are meant to be useless.
Next on the list was the trusty CCleaner, which is a perfectly decent application that we’ve recommended before. Installed, done, great.
After that we tried to install the next item, which is the YTD downloader app, but Avast completely blocked the download of the application. That turned out to be a pretty good thing as we’ll see later, but we wish Avast would have blocked all that other browser hijacking nonsense too. Oh well, can’t win them all. At least Avast is doing something.
Next we tried to install Free YouTube Downloader, only to find out that one was being blocked by Avast as well. Now why would these apps be on the most popular recommendation list along with another app that is blocking these apps? If these are viruses and spyware, why are they being distributed? Something seems wrong here.
And don’t the Download.com terms and conditions state that malware is not allowed? Hmmm, maybe they didn’t actually read them and just clicked Accept. It’s what we would do.
Avast did a better job than some other antivirus products.
The next one on the list is Driver Booster which we installed despite that How-To Geek site telling us that driver updaters are actually worse than useless. Those idiots! It’s not like they’ve done tons and tons of research or anything. But don’t tell us that, we’re installing it anyway! I wonder what those checkboxes are telling us. No time for that, CLICKITY CLICK CLICK CLICK!
Crapware bundling crapware is sooo 2014.
That’s weird, all of a sudden this Advanced Systemcare thing showed up. How did that get there? There must be hackers inside my PC.
We’re starting to wonder if this was such a good idea…
Next up on the download list was IObit Uninstaller, because clearly we’re going to need to uninstall some software after this is over, and it’s not like they would actually install other software… wait… what’s that tiny little checkbox down there?
Uninstallers shouldn’t Install things. It violates the three laws.
Oh no! All of a sudden, YAC is YACKing messages at us saying that something is tampering with our settings! If only that message would stay there for more than 10 seconds. Or maybe if we could view some more information. Or see a log somewhere about what’s actually happening. Or have the slightest clue that it’s doing something useful and not just throwing up scary messages CONSTANTLY.
Seriously, this YAC thing pops up a message every few seconds saying something or another.
After installing Virtual DJ with no ill side effects for some reason, we decided that we’d finish off the list with Download App which we’re not entirely sure… but appears to be made by Download.com. It’s all a little confusing, and we don’t remember where we left our car, but we’re going to end our experiment here, we think. It’s a good thing they’ve got all those lawyers to write terms and conditions about how we can use the software. Surely all that legal language will protect us or somebody.
Wait, don’t we already have Spigot browser hijacker installed?
Golly gee willikers batman! YAC just let us know that something called SP.exe is trying to reset our home page to something else! It’s a good thing that YAC is going to keep it set to…. the YAC home page? When did we agree to that?
Constant popups for a few minutes, but finally one of them gave up and walked away.
Search Protect and YAC and Spigot continued to fight it out for a while at this point… literally every few seconds one or the other would change the home page and then YAC would try to set it back. It’s like battle of the crapware up in here. Taking all bets!
At this point we had so many open windows on our desktop, it was time to reboot. That fixes everything.
After rebooting, Avast blocked Conduit as a threat. That’s pretty awesome, but we’re wondering why this didn’t happen before it actually got installed onto the computer, or at least during. Or you know, before we rebooted.
At least they did block it. Can’t argue with that.
Sadly, even though Trovi / Conduit was blocked as a virus… the homepage for IE still ended up being set to it. Luckily it’s easy to change the IE homepage, right?
Just for shiggles, we decided to go back and install that YTD downloader app that Avast blocked. We turned off the shields for a few minutes, installed it… and all of a sudden we couldn’t use the browser anymore. Every time you open IE, this weird message shows up… and the browser appears to be trying to use some tunnel.
It’s a good thing Avast blocked this earlier.
At it turns out, that download was blocked for a reason: it installs a proxy and tries to send all of your web browsing through it. That’s really bad.
The malware was something called mybrowserbar, and it’s really bad.
We’ll have to honestly say that Avast did block the worst of the malware, but it did nothing for most of the spyware and browser hijackers. The problem is that this issue of bundled software is so pervasive that there’s nothing any antivirus vendor can do.
Even though Avast did a good job overall, it can’t protect us from ourselves.
The End, For Now
Our story ends here, but hopefully we’ve all learned some important lessons from this quick journey through the world of crapware. Freeware software vendors make almost all of their money by bundling complete nonsense and scareware that tricks users into paying to clean up their PC, despite the fact that you could prevent the need to clean up your PC by just not installing the crappy freeware to begin with.
And no matter how technical you might be, most of the installers are so confusing that there’s no way a non-geek could figure out how to avoid the awful. So if you recommend a piece of software to somebody, you are basically asking them to infect their computer.
And it doesn’t matter which antivirus you have installed — we’ve actually done this experiment a number of times with different antivirus vendors, and most of them completely ignored all of the bundled crapware. Avast did a pretty good job this time compared to some of the other vendors, but it didn’t block all of it for sure.
There are also no safe freeware download sites… because as you can clearly see in the screenshots in this article, it isn’t just CNET Downloads that is doing the bundling… it’s EVERYBODY. The freeware authors are bundling crapware, and then lousy download sources are bundling even more on top of it. It’s a cavalcade of crapware.
Each time we ran through this experiment over the last few months, different software would end up being bundled in a rotation, but every single software that bundles itself ends up bundling the same culprits: browser hijackers that redirect your search engine, home page, and put extra ads everywhere.
Because when the product is free the real product is YOU.
I guess dark theme is a thing with crapware vendors now
Don’t recommend freeware downloads.
There are good freeware download sites out there, one just needs to know where to look. If your still using places like Cnet, Download.com or Filehippo then that is your fault, it is very well known that these sites bundle freeware with malware or adware.
A good free piece of software to use if you fool will freeware downloads is Unchecky, it will uncheck all those little boxes that one misses during install.
As for me, I still recommend freeware to people, but I do not send them to places that will install malicious software on their system.
It doesn't matter what download site you use. The people that make the freeware are the ones bundling things.
Yes, some download sites make it worse by bundling on top of the bundling.
Lots of other people recommend filehippo, for instance.
Also clearly you didn't read the article because we illustrated how everybody is bundling.
I looked at that Top 10 list and thought, "aw shiz, I have 2 of them installed." Fortunately, the two are Avast! free, and CCleaner - which were given the OK. But it got me to read the full article. Thanks.
It's all well and good to say "it's your own fault" if you download from those sites. But these sites and developers don't target the people who know what is "well known" about which site, or that they should not use "download helpers" over the program developer's installer, or that they should not install "free" toolbars.
They target the people who know very little about things, who google a program that someone has told them about, and who invariably go for the topmost Google search result, click the shiny green "Download" button, keep all the checkboxes checked and then panic when they get the "Your computer has 190123gazillion errors! Buy our software to totally fix it!" routine. And that's not a tiny minority; I'd wager a guess that it's the large majority of computer users. I've talked to young people (it's not just a problem of the cliché old people) who work in office jobs but are incapable of installing any program on their PC - and they're probably the safe ones compared to the ones that install whatever they find.
One needs to educate people about this sort of thing, which is why posts like this HTG one are useful, because one can link people to them and tell not just where to download, but rather what to look for on those sites too, as there is no guarantee that a site that doesn't bundle things today won't start doing it tomorrow.
It's not always mentioned if things are wrapped. When I first noticed CNet was now bundling things, it was because I had caught scareware from there, and I am positive that there was not a single thing indicating its presence in the installer (and yes, I inadvertently used said installer, that was the part where I did not pay attention). There were a number of people in CNet's user forum saying the same thing.
And where should you do this research and ask these questions? Forums are full of recommendations for software that is doing bundling.
That is exactly why we are trying to bring the problem to the attention of geeks so they will stop recommending freeware to people without doing serious research and linking to a completely safe source.... although that source might not even stay safe.
I mean SourceForge is bundling now. You can't even trust them.
Don't worry though, we will continue to illustrate the problem, which is much deeper than you want to admit.
And sure, you can attack my slight exaggeration for the purpose of illustration and then invalidate my argument.
But when you consider that freeware makers get paid $1 or so per browser-hijacking crapware that gets installed... and most of them bundle multiple into a single installer... and many of these apps have 10 or 50 or 100 MILLION downloads, you're talking about millions and millions of dollars that these freeware vendors are getting paid for this.
If you were a freeware or shareware vendor, and after years of working really hard and almost nobody giving you any purchases or donations you were approached by one of these bundler companies...
Almost anybody would take a $10 to $20 million payday and go live on a yacht and not worry about it anymore.
And that's what has happened to the freeware market.
I would be very interested to see this experiment repeated with Unchecky installed.
Yes, I totally agree. Although I'm a Windows person myself,this is one of the reasons why I recommend Macs to people that aren't computer-savvy.
I had a pc for work and we loaded nothing but paid applications, the company could afford it of course. Strictly productive software. Other than the browser being able to get out to the internet and play around I was more focused on work. 4+ years that PC ran and never seemed to have issues. I loved it. My trusty dusty little workhorse.
Use ninite.com. No Crapware and you can install a bunch of programs at once.
I did telephone IT Help Desk at an international engineering company for a couple of years. It was a huge laugh. If you want to see the results from non-techie inter-webbing, try help desk for a while. One of the best (worst?) I saw was a guy that had no less than 21 IE toolbars. It was wild, he had barely no room to see the porn he was trying to watch.
THIS.
Fortunately, bundling is still optional, but what does it say about the Libre community when FOSS developers are bundling adware in with their software? I've reached the point where I'd rather just pay than deal with "free" ad-supported software.
Let me share some lights intro the adware/toolbar mafia.
First there ware Smilies.Do you remember those pesky/useless Smilies?
After a while, big producers of AV (AVG, Avira etc) saw the opportunity to bundle Google Toolbar. That made them 20 mil $ in one year alone (inside info).
That opened the flood gates for Companies like: - Genieo- IronSource- Somoto (10+ new sites/day)- WeDownload (soft32.com) - after the soft32.com adware success, they now concentrate on Mac Toolbars and fake security programs, like YAC, but for mac)- YAC- Minspark (Ask.com toolbars)- Adknowledge- Bimo Media- PERION NETWORK- Conduit (banned by Google)-Babylon- etc
Read some info here:http://www.haaretz.com/business/.premium-1.542896
There are 3 types of delivery:- via producer (ex CCleaner, IMGburn etc)- via Download Managers (Wrappers), available on the big download sites (Download.com, Filehippo.com, Soft32.com, Softonic.com etc)- temporary sites, made for Adsense, that serve mostly Open Source software, wrapped around downloaders (VLC, Java, AV Codecs, Service Packs, Flash etc)All sites have protected Whois!
I have standing offers up to 1.5$/installation, that's why the fight is so brutal!The deals are exclusive, so the bidding is fierce for the download sites => the next best thing is Adwords/Adsense, where you can push a lot of garbage for 5 cents/click!
Did you see those Download Button Ads or Deceiving text like "Start Download" ?
I block about 10 new sites/day, all made for adware! They trow 100+ new deceiving ads/day!
The new front is now Mac!Adware for mac is growing at an alarming rate
I recommend Linux Mint for my appropriate, that uses the PC for browsing and some text editing.
See some pictures with some blocked adwords accounts and ads.I have 400 blocked advertiser accounts and 1500 domains in the last 5 years!They create new accounts each day...
imgur.com/a/xRGcE#0
You must understand that the main culprit here is Google.Those sites are very high in results and Google makes a lot of money from the Button Ads!(you did notice the Softonic and Cnet shameless spam?)
If those sites are marked as "dangerous", the problem will go away in one week
P.S. You must understand that the internet business is tougher each year, and even once giants like Cnet, Winzip, Winrar are doing this in order to survive...
P.S.2 My site has no downloaders and we are proud of this situation! We refused offers of millions of $$$.
You should read the EULA. Sometimes free programs come with some obvious junkware offers you can decline, but hidden in the EULA are additional PUPs that you can't decline. I recently needed a program to perform one task. I found several free choices, but every one of them had junkware listed in the EULA. In the end I downloaded one, used it, and then uninstalled it and the PUP that came with it.
I'm still a big fan of Ninite. I understand that it's not 100% foolproof because nothing is anymore, but then again, I don't overload any computer I use with useless junk freeware just because it's there.
From a clean install of Windows, I use Ninite to download the "standard" things, such as another browser to use instead of IE (read: Chrome), Adobe Reader, runtime apps if needed, Malwarebytes, MS Essentials (Win. 7 machines), VLC, Skype, Evernote, Dropbox, and a few others depending on needs. Ninite saves time...lots of time.
Just downloading something because it's on a "Top 10" list, and if people aren't going to do a minute or two of research, they might as well download all those "PC Optimizing" software from 3am infomercials.
I was thinking that is a great idea for an article and then I remembered we already wrote that one...
You're just wrong about that though... a ton of software is not available on the manufacturer's site and you are forced to click through to CNET Downloads to get the latest version.
For instance, try and download Macrium Reflect Free edition from their site. It'll send you to CNET.
Sure, you can probably do some searching around and find an older version mirrored somewhere like Majorgeeks. But be honest, they have a really confusing site with download ads right next to the download links. Most people are going to be confused.
The only real safe way to distribute non-crapware freeware to your friends is to give it to them on a USB drive, or stick it up into your Dropbox account and share the link with them.
Damn shame what is going on. Windows has security problems to begin with. This just adds to the dilemma. For a novice or uninformed Windows user these things mean aggravation, time and money.
With Mac and Linux available one wonders why people put up with this. But then again the majority of Windows users don't care to be able to do anything except press the power button and shut windows down when they are done.
I've been using FileHippo for a long time, but I never saw any bundling coming from the site. It's true that I only download a specific set of apps. Maybe some of the software listed is bundled with crap by their original authors. When I'm suspicious I usually search the hash of the file using Google. I like the site because it offers an easy way to get older versions of the programs, I can't seem to find anywhere else. Can you point out just one link from that site which downloads crapware, so that I can exclude this site from now on with peace of mind?
I've also used MajorGeeks.com, again without encountering any site-specific bundling for many years now. Never mind the ads on the site itself (they gotta make a living from something, right?), the downloaded bits seemed clean so far. You get the option to download from the original sites or from one of their proxies (always the latest version, and always hash equivalent in between as far as I saw)
I wonder why nothing happens (legally) with Download.com after so many bad reviews recently (not only from HTG). Can they get away with it just by presenting you with all that text, nobody never reads anyway?
This is a huge issue for Microsoft as it's the biggest issue I have with Windows users who bring their kit to me after just downloading one piece of software. One CNET sourced download can cripple a laptop or PC which just ruins the experience for the end user. The customers ask me "how do I avoid this?" and other than trying to push them via Ninite there isn't really anything I can say. They just aren't sharp enough to avoid it. So all I hear is "well maybe I'll get a Mac next time!"
These software vendors/downloaders are just helping to destroy their own market slowly and painfully. Crapware is the biggest negative in the Windows world be it from the likes of CNET or bundled on new machines. Just ruins the experience.
By the way what was Downloads/CNET's response to this? I take it you asked them for comment?
Yeah I've been asking MS reps whenever I see them to say that MS should start selling their own branded laptops far more.
Just good well built laptops with just Windows and that's it. So other than updates and installing only the software you need, its ready out of the box almost. If Apple can do it then why not MS? Who cares if it annoys Dell/HP/Acer/Asus/Toshiba, it might make them up their game and quit putting so much crap on that just makes Windows look bad.
In all fairness, this was the primary selling point of the Mac for a very long time... that it's like a toaster: you don't have to know HOW it works, just that it works. Go watch the "switch" ads again. What you just stated is exactly what every one of those ads says.
So I find it ironic that people will make a statement like that about Windows, when Windows is supposed to be the "hard to use" operating system.
Two points:
A. People are lulled by the CNet brand name associated with Downloads.com. I know I was for years.
It's hard to believe a company with as important a corporate image as CBS (owners of CNet) allows this deceptive and dangerous nonsense to occur under their stewardship. The geeks of the world (including your site) would be well-advised to point out this ownership connection and hold CBS' feet to the fire more loudly and more often.
Won't solve the whole problem, but could tone it down on this much used site at least.
B. After getting a nasty dose of Conduit from Download.com - which I had to use four different anti-malware programs to tame - I personally use the download sites to look for alternatives to the type of app I'm after and skim the user reviews for possible useful takes (though I worry that along with the other problems on the site, the reviews might be "salted" with fake ones).
And then I Google for the app adding terms like program only, no add-ons, malware free - which usually takes me to the developer's site - where, to date - I've gotten noting but relatively clean downloads of the apps I was after. I say relatively because there may be one or two add-on offers I have to decline, but they've all been straight-forward and out in front where "no thanks" is easy to indicate.
E.g., my first download of CalcTape (a really unique and cool app) was done on my last (ever) use of Download.com And I had to thread a maze of tricky option choices all through the down and install processes which still gave me some piece of crap I had to root out. And when I wanted to install it on my new computer, I found the developer site and got a quick, clean install (even tho' the developer's download file was 5+ times the size of the CNet download).
I've repeated this with others, and it's now my default approach. And at the least it removes a spam-supported middleman from the process.
All the people implying that the weaker Windows users should just switch to Mac or Linux are avoiding one massive point. Those users will be just as careless on those systems too. While the basic security posture is better, the users are still going to not uncheck boxes and they'll still install PUA when they inevitably fall back on old habits and Google for the apps they want. Worse, they'll probably still believe the outdated and inflated idea that Mac and Linux don't get malware. Go ahead and tell the careless users to switch away from Windows, but don't expect them to magically become competent.
As a developer of freeware (Win32DiskImager), I personally want to know if you download my app and get malware installed. Please post a bug report on either http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager or https://bugs.launchpad.net/win32-image-writer. Make sure you include a link to the download that contained the malware.
I release a zip file with the executable and support libraries, along with an installer (made from an open source installer tool) that just puts the program in c:\Program Files and an icon on your start menu. Any extras not in the readme file are NOT mine.
Thanks
As the co-owner of MajorGeeks, there is good reason for this. The PC market has declined around 50% as competition from tablets and phones has come in and Windows has yet to respond with a product that can match the popularity of iOS and Android. Imagine you come to work today and your boss tells you that he has cut your pay 50% to match the 50% loss in business. What would you do? You might quit because you might not have a job soon anyway. But, the answer in the internet market is wrappers, which picks up the slack. We have had discussions about doing it but we just couldn’t get there. We even discussed it with a few who weren’t so sleazy but we have no control of what many wrappers do so we made a conscious decision to take the pay hit and not do it in the hopes people will eventually find us and improve traffic. So, our answer to the 50% pay cut was to work harder and stay the course. Over the years we have seen popups, behind the window ads, in-line ads, wrappers, affiliate sales and much more. We change with the times to do whatever pays best; this is a business after all. We have taken pride in offering only the top 1-5 percent of software and if we added a wrapper it would damage the 15 years we have worked at trying to provide safe downloads. I do miss the old days where we only tested for quality and all of this crap didn’t exist. Articles like this, teaching people to stop installing this garbage hopefully will cut down this market to where there’s no money In it. Thanks for the great, in-depth article. Impressive.
One of my favorite TechNet articles has this covered.
Ten Immutable Laws Of Security
Portable apps are generally less likely to have crapware. Even if they do, it's generally less likely to be persistent since it's not actually getting "installed". This is especially true for the ones that don't need elevated privileges to run - even if they wanted to, they'd have a hard time dropping in anything persistent, global, or well-hidden, without elevation.
Regardless, Law #1 still applies. Be careful who you're getting the tools from (generally prefer direct from the developer), and mindful of what access you allow them to have to your system.
The first time I tested their Download App updater thing, it installed some serious malware adware. The second time it only installed some regular adware / malware.
Definitely don't install it.