Deceptive download sites

[andrew129260]

bear, did you ever try unchecky?

The "portable programs are also an interesting alternative. If you're not forced to enter your admin password into an UAC box there is no chance of installing anything in the computer.

I politely disagree, malware can easily bypass uac. And portable programs can still do damage. They are less of a risk though.

Good point and certainly true. UAC can be bypassed easily, but only at the default configuration, proper security settings can mitigate that bug (bug that MS knows and refuses to fix).
Portables can do damage, yes, very true, I was thinking in system-wide changes that are prevented so. BTW, that makes me remember this xkcd comic. There we have 2 extra mitigation measures, running with low integrity or run as another user so that programs lose access to our data, that UAC will of course not protect.
It could be an interesting discussion and a lot of options exist, but that's another history

That could be a 3 pager haha

 

[Layback Bear]

No I have never tried unchecky.

 

[M1GU31]

Glad they mentioned cnet on being a bad site, I really hate that site because it usually infects ppls computers that I have had to fix in the past. I personally loved using filehippo though like the site shows it's starting to bloat up as well it's getting much harder these days. Glad you linked this article thus opening up more tech websites for me to browse that are listed that are not bloated.

 

[andrew129260]

No I have never tried unchecky.

I think you should give it a try, very light app barely consumes any resources and is quite good at blocking and informing you of nast installers.

 

[Layback Bear]

Some say it's good and some don't.

 

[andrew129260]

Ya the program is not perfect, each installer has to be modified and the developer has to be aware to the installers that do it. He has made it now I believe that every installer will go to custom automatically (even ones not known about) so that you can easily avoid most things. Plus I notice that video was the first release version and not the latest. The developer had made a lot of changes to the program since that video was made. I would encourage you to give it a try but it is your decision and machine.

I really like it and I think it is almost essential for every windows user. But to each his own.

 

[whs]

I installed it but right now I have nothing to download, LOL - so I'll have to wait and see.

 

[andrew129260]

Try anything from cnet lol.

yac is a good one. or kmplayer fox it reader etc.

 

[whs]

Maybe I try that in one of my virtual systems - when I have nothing else to do.

 

[Layback Bear]

Getting a clean download from CNet should be a challenge for any program.
Wolfgang when you do give it a try and unchecky does it's thing. Do a search of your system and see if the item that were unchecked didn't sneak in anyway.
I have had times when they still sneak in, checked or unchecked.