Oh yeah! WELL I LIKE Pizza! TOP THAT BABY! -Yo Mama Well anyways im not using aim anymore.

that was a stupid use of the term carte blanche up there, dude. Translated: I have blank check refused any aol aoftware on my machine and i kill it as soon as i install anything if it comes bundled with AOL stuff on it.

After i got about the 3rd movie trailer or animated ad on aim i switched to Trillian,- never looked back.

its also interesting to note that aol stores every single conversation that takes place on the aim network as well as the aol subscriber network for a period of at least one year. keep this in mind if you talk about or plot something illegal using their network, as the logs are admissable in (at least) the new york state court system. not that they were slick by doing so, associates of mine dug their own grave mentioning 'things' on their network, and the conversations were an exhibit in the trial. screw all the bells and whistles and ever-watching corporate eyes of all the above mentioned networks. go private.. IRC FOREVER.

Oh right, so thats what the (UK) TV advert means by "gives you movie trailers", which I thought you could get from the WWW anyway, no matter which ISP you use. Intersting use of words.

well, FARK it

Too bad GAIM is so underdeveloped... otherwise I'd use it. can't even support outgoing file transfers....sheesh

hey, im ready to stop all the crap im getting. anyone know where i can get: pop up blocker spy and addware detector and remover kazaa lite- version that is able to launch w/out popups? i need em all free too :)

Far be it from yours truly (of all people) to defend A-O-Hell, but, after reading the post, I checked two XP machines in my house that are running AIM. Neither have Wild Tangent or Viewpoint installed, and neither have free.aol.com in the IE "Trusted Sites" list. Methinks the original article as quoted in the forum might be a little out of date. Perhaps an AOL or AIM installation also installed these other pieces of software at one time, but they do not do so now AFAIK. The two computers that are running it here have both had AIM installed in the last sixty days. Nonetheless, I still personally would not urinate on AOL were it/they on fire, even if my bladder was full...

You're all whining about a FREE program you got run FREE by a corporation, and crying bloody murder about installation of programs that you AGREED to when you agreed with the terms of usage of software, and the best solution is to boycott the usage of the FREE software because God knows AOL will cry about losing fREE subscribers, or using Trillian and other bloated alternatives in the hope that denying AOL their advertising money will fix all the problems and they won't one day have you by the nads charging $10/month for AIM. With brilliant people like you, its no wonder the world is as it is.

My high school junior son "shares" his XP computer with his buddies, one of which installed AIM on 27 February - along with came Viewpoint, WildTangent and free AOL - who knows what else. I guess I'll have to clean off the "junk" again. It's a shame.

As far as I can tell, the gripe is that the user does NOT have to agree to install the spyware, and is not even informed that it is being installed. I don't think people would be upset if AOL told them they were installing NON-SECURE SOFTWARE on their machine, and gave them the option to not install AIM afterall because of it. The annoyance comes not from the software that was agreed to, but the software that wasn't. As for the potential effectiveness of a boycott, I say this. AOL makes a lot of $$ through advertising and other things off their FREE software. If they didn't, it would've been discontinued. It's a simple law of economics. Finally, I have been very happy with Trillian for years and would urge everyone to get it, especially if you use 2 or more IM services as it simplifies things immensley. It is not Bloated. And the day they start charging for AIM is the day they lose 99.9% of their subscribers to MSN, ICQ, or some other new service that will spring up to fill the gap. The way I see it, if you don't mind that AOL (or anyone) is installing sh*t on your computer without your consent, you're a moron. But that's just my opinion.

In reply to the request for free ad- and popup-blockers: Try MyIE2 as browser. Filters ads, popups, and tons of other things. it's also highly customizable, and works on IE's infrastructure, so there's no compatibility issue involved (IE format is unfortunately the norm in web-pages). Spyware removal: google for AdAware and Spybot: Search&Destroy. Get both. Kazaa lite: if you cant even be bothered to google for it, try this: http://www.zeropaid.com/kazaalite/ As for AIM, there may be a checkbox somewhere along the install process that we some of us (me included) uncheck out of habit, thus not installing all those things. Because i have none of it, and AIM is still working. As for the "at least it's all free, so stop complaining" line of thought, i want to point out what happened to AOL in France: they offered FREE Internet connection, with a contract. And they got sued because the lines were busy, and thus they did not fulfil their part of the contract. And they lost. It may sound ridiculous, but after all it was a contract. The "free" argument doesn't stand. Especially with so much open-source (or at least free) software on the market that does NOT choose to spy or profit from you. Or at least TELLS you. Just my $0.02.

re andreicio's reply, yes I also use MyIE2 which I have found brilliant... if you really HAVE to use MSIE, it makes it behave much more like Opera lol! Why not try Mozilla (or its Firebird little cousin) or Opera instead of MSIE? Those are real browsers, totally seperate from the OS which is where IE has its security problems. Yes, spybot "search and destroy" will search everywhere, and then catalogue all the nasties it finds into a list, telling you what each does, and giving you a checkbox against each to remove them or not at your discretion. While you are about it, install Zone Alarm, and set the internet setting to at least mid-range. It popped up a window one day asking me if some spyware I had inadvertantly got should be allowed to access the net or not. Or maybe it was a trojan. Either way, it gave me the nod something was trying to call home, which I was able to fix before it did anything. There are lots of free things out there. Go visit Steve Gibson's website at www.grc.com for a few thoughts on exactly what nasties are being incubated. Enjoy the net lol!

I just happened to stumble across this site and got to thinking...those wild tangent files and everything else aol/aim drops in your comp has been the source from every hijackers/worm my computer has been exposed to. Every time i reboot my computer (not even opening aim) the same wild tangent, and veiwpoint files are again still in my system. Then when i do open aim, instantly the same hijackers i just removed are back...i dont know, maybe its just a coincidence.

I have a computer that my school issued to me and it doesn't let anything downoaded run without an administrater logging in and allowing it so if you can figure out how to make it like that it might block it

I find this whole thing interesting. I don't know a lot about computers or how the internet all works, but I do okay. You all seem to be pretty familiar with this spyware, how it works, and how to avoid it, etc. However, I would venture to say that the vast majority of Americans have no idea that it even exists and there is the problem. Oh, and don't expect the media to make it publicly known either. There is a reason AOL is part of AOL/Time-Warner. I heard a news report yesterday on NPR about how the Communist Government in China monitors all internet access within the country. They have software set up that tracks where you go and what sites you look at. On top of that they will not allow your computer to access many sites that they find controversial or against the will of the Communist Government. Many of these sites have to deal with Tibet, Free Speech, Democracy, the United States, the BBC, etc. For example, if you attempt to visit a site that even has the word "Tibet" or any other "key word" in it, one or more of several things will happen. The Government computer will either not allow you to access the site or it will make your computer go to a different website by changing the target address. It will also record your information on a national database as being anti-government and mark you for further scrutiny and possible apprehension as a disident. Remember, disident is can be a synonym for Enemy Combatant. We talk about all of our freedoms here in the US. Well, if we don't wake up and stop them from being taken from us, we will end up without any freedoms at all. They are taking our free speach away; they are taking our right to defend ourselves away; they are taking our rights to a lawyer away; they are taking our rights to privacy away; they are monitoring our email, internet, cell phones, library cards, etc. I could go right down the list of the Bill of Rights. There is an election coming up. Vote for Bush, Vote for Kerry. I don't care. They are the same guy with a different face. Do you think that Kerry will stop the invasion and disassembly of the Constitution? The president is just on person and just one branch of government. We need to start making changes in Congress, in the State Governments, and in the Local Governments. These are the people that make the laws. These are the people that can wield the money and the power to protect our Constitutional rights. These are the people that stand between the Free country we love, and Communist China.