the reply:

I dont know if there is going to be any “short way” to say this, but Ill try -

Ive been following the LH article as well as the digsby forum regarding this, I feel the LH article was quite out of place and spiteful – I also feel that the Digsby team made some horrible errors in judgement.

HOWEVER – there isnt very many free apps that dont try to include some sort of “addon” for revenue, I suppose the difference is there isnt a convoluted installer app ( like digsby’s ), nor are there usually SIX offers; at the same time Digsby is offering Six options for its users to choose to help support Digsby, again though, the problem is, the way these options are presented at install are VERY confusing.

When I first heard about the very non-disclosed grid-research being turned on, I didnt really think it was that big of a deal and thought “Hey, Digsby made a mistake they offered a fix and change in policy. Why not support Digsby in this way?” After following the “forums” I find there really isnt as much transparency from the Digsby team as they are making it seem.

As much as I have enjoyed using Digsby, and even though I have done the research back through the replies on this forum and the blog and know the “grid research” has yet to supposedly be turned on – the fact that the devs dont want to reconsider giving an on/off option at install, or disclose what exactly the research is going to do. I really need to reconsider using Digsby until the developers decide to change their “tactics” , keep in mind this is more of a matter of principle towards how the developers have so far responded more than it is boycotting Digsby because of the software itself. I hope in the future the Digsby team can come to a very agreeable resolution that will make everyone happy and put Digsby back on the top of the list for best IM clients.

Granted, It was wrong of Digsby to implement the resource usage as on by default but if you read the blog you will find out they are NOT IMPLEMENTING the resource usage for research yet. ( believe it or not, you trolls seem to already have your opinions worked out ).

Let me pose this question to you all – What if someone wrote a scathing review about *GASP* GOOGLE CHROME and how evil google is because they want to install their search toolbar and their desktop app and they are going log all the websites you go to and all the searches you make AND TIE THEM TO YOUR IDENTIFIABLE IP ADDRESS! hmmm… OH WAIT, CCLEANER ALSO ASKS TO LOAD A TOOLBAR AND CHANGE YOUR SEARCH OPTIONS when you install it. Do I need to go on?

I suppose though since about every other week there is a huge amount of google fanboyism on lifehacker that an article about googles shady practices would NEVER MAKE IT onto Lifehackers main page.

But for any of you members that may want to educate yourself elsewhere I suggest this blog post

http://bit.ly/EKKpt

Anyway, I doubt anyone will even see this as the entire Rant Piece is halfway down the screen now.

/end rant

P.S. Digsby works just the same today after this article as it did 2 days ago… just sayin’

Anyway

I am an alpha tester for the Digsby IM Client, yesterday after firing up Digsby I got one of their pop up notifications directing me to a blog post about their “transparency” policy ( as it were ) in regards to their money making policies, which included the obvious 6 options of additional tool bars and other possible targeted advertising software, crapware, malware ( insert where applicable ) – and also and unbeknown to me, do to the installer app not mentioning it, their Turned on by default “grid based” computer research module – as the Digsby blog covers in good detail.

If any of you don’t already know the precursor to this was a seemingly very out of place Lifehacker post In regards to just how evil Digsby is.

Of course the Lifehacker post complains that Digsby is adding all sorts of crapware or spyware to your system at the time of install –

This is true, in fact it was quite the moment during my installation and by extension first impressions of using Digsby. I hit the DECLINE button on all the “additional offers” and finished installing. Still unaware of the “research” option being on.

Ive used Digsby with quite a bit of enjoyment and still find it a very nice and capable IM client – I read the replies at Lifehacker and the Digsby Forum regarding the Lifehacker article. Here are my thoughts all rolled up in to hopefully some chaotic order:

Lifehacker is making it seem that Digsby is the ONLY free application in the world that offers to add toolbars and other things during their installation process, yet Lifehacker touts and promotes MANY OTHER FREE APPS that do the same thing, CCLeaner even wants to know if you want to add a toolbar and change your default search page, as an example. Pot calling the Kettle Black much??

Granted there are quite a few “opt in” options during the digsby installation – but it really is no different than anything else you install and to their credit, Digsby is giving its users the OPTION instead of keeping everything checked for the uninformed click happy p.c. users.

Now then, onto Digsby – As in the blog post Digsby is offering a poll into how their users would like to help support Digsby – This is however only AFTER Lifehacker “exposed the truth” (as it were) –

Digsby has broken the trust of many of its users by silently allowing users p.c. to do something for Digsby that the user did not knowingly allow – THAT right there is what the very definition of spyware / malware is (in my opinion), whether it was an honest mistake from the developers or not remains to be seen by their future actions – I must say that in the forum replies from the developers they are claiming that the “grid research” was only implemented and being tested locally at Digsby, to quote from the Digsby forum

Just know that the research plugin has not been doing any of the things stated in the lifehacker article. It has been running local unit tests at very low CPU intervals (as it will remain for now), it was going to stay like this till a more prominent way to display the option was created. Even before the LH article was publish we were working on both the issues noted in our earlier blog post: http://bit.ly/9AJ2i. If you notice the date of the blog post, you will see that it was disclosed months ago. Lifehacker made it seem as if this was something we were purposefully hiding when the truth of the matter is that we’ve been working to properly launch this to our users with a full understanding of what it does. -Digsby Developer Jeffrey

Well what should be done?

First of all I think Lifehacker needs to get some better content or at least do a bit more follow up before posting something that was so “from the hip” as the Digsby article was. In fact, LH should really consider removing the post all together.

Second I think Digsby should really rethink their support options, perhaps instead of 6 different offers ( and thusly 6 different pages to go through during installation ) a page that says something like “if you want options to support digsby please select the help support digsby option under the help menu” Then they can list the all options and users can pick and choose at their liesure.

As far as the Grid Research which is the primary bone of contention – Digsby needs to have this made apparent DURING THE INSTALL PROCESS, and not just in the EULA, if the developers decide to leave it on by default then they need to make that perfectly clear during the installation process of digsby ALONG WITH the instructions on how to disable it.

Better still I think, is this: Why not allow the users of digsby to pick and choose what research they will allow their computer to do on behalf of Digsby? Instead of Digsby just saying that its “research” which could mean anything – perhaps Digsby should say “Okay if you would like to support us we do grid research with these services, please select as many as you wish to participate in.” Then of course list the options maybe even with a More Info link to their about page so users can; ( this is important ) if THEY CHOOSE make an informed decision on the companies they will allow their computer to do research for.

Pretty much the way I see it, both Lifehacker and Digsby have screwed the pooch as it were. I am going to really really really question anything I see on Lifehacker and I am going to pay very close attention to what digsby is doing ( i already disabled the research option ) – Yet I cant fault a company for trying some innovative things to help fund their projects, in fact if I knew on the outset Digsby wanted to do the grid research when my p.c. is idle etc, I probably would have had no problem with it. I really wouldnt have had a problem with it if they (Digsby) offered me the options of what research I would allow them to do.

I am for the time being still going to use Digsby as really, there is no change to the usage of the application between 2 days ago and now.

This is of course only my .02 worth — take it or leave it, but if you did manage to read it all, I thank you for your time =p

“”WARNING: IT SEEMS A LOT OF PEOPLE (MYSELF INCLUDED) HAVE EXPERIANCED PROBLEMS AFTER DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING THE NEW 3.0 FIRMWARE. IF YOU UPDATE NOW YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF STUCK AT THE “SLIDE FOR EMERGANCY” SCREEN, IF THIS OCCURS YOU WILL NEED TO FORCE THE PHONE INTO DFU MODE AND RESTORE IT TO FACTORY SETTINGS. IT MAY BE WORTH HOLDING OFF A FEW DAYS UNTIL THESE BUGS HAVE BEEN SORTED.”"

it was put on the internet in all caps….redone here as well for journalistic integrity

http://www.cosm.co.nz/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=registers&referrer=AUPRS-DARK5TAR

thanks

www.tomcosm.com

Here is a snippet of his BIO

Let me tell you about someone who is doing something interesting in the music industry.
Tom Cosm is a guy who performs an interesting blend of minimal, electro, trance and
whatever else he decides to chuck in there, using a laptop and various controllers.
He promotes his musical project using word of mouth, keeping all of his music free for
download to anyone at any time.
Tom has used this method to become a well known musician and has traveled to perform
and teach at some of the worlds most renowned electronic dance music festivals, including
Boom Festival (Portugal), Rainbow Serpent Festival (Australia) and Ultra Groove (Brazil).
The other interesting niche about this guy, is he makes all of his techniques available to
anyone… no production secrets or exclusivity. His interactive website is full of tutorial
videos and ready to jam Ableton Live packs, so people can see not just how he wrote the
music, but how he gives a true live performance (he
s not one of these hit-play-and-dance-
around-like-i
m-doing-something live acts).
One problem Tom does have, is writing profiles in third person. It always ends up sounding
wanky, so I am going to stop right there and talk directly to you if that
s ok, it
s a lot nicer
for me and I hope for you as well.
You
re reading this because someone made a decision that my project is worth spreading.
Your task is to decide if this persons opinion is enough for you to take it to the next level
and have a skim through my work your self.
If anything in this write up has triggered your curiosity, I invite you come on over using the
link below, I
ve set up a single page for you with immediate resources so you can quickly
browse over the things I do and make your own decision.
Word of mouth – it
s the way I work. I don
t have a label, I don
t have any fancy releases
and I am not going to be taking any scene by storm- but I will make sure everyone who
ever respects my project will get it right back in return.
Thanks for reading this far in an age of information overload.
-Tom

If any of you would like to help me out, then please follow the link below, Register and then maybe get some of his music

http://www.cosm.co.nz/index.php?option=com_

Thanks!

AVOID THIS LIKE THE PLAGUE!!

Also thanks to some that will remain nameless

Add these to your host file with the 127.0.0.1 loopback

bestcleaner.us
ultracleaner.us
ultracleaner.biz
websecurityvoice.com
greatvirusscan.com
securityscanguide.com
getpcguard.com
initialsecurityscan.com
interinetskim.com
wwwmobilereads.com
websecuritymaster.com
networkstabilityscan.com
fullandtotalsecurity.com
secureserver4.cc
securityscan4you.com
free-web-scaners.info
totalvirushield.com
justwebsecurity.com
xvirusdescan.com
hypersecurityshield.com
fullvirusprotection.com
freewebmypcscan.com
besthandycap.com
futureinternetsecurity.com
internetsecuritymetrics.com

STOP and DELETE these

05643921.exe
install.exe
00308937.exe

and REMOVE these registery entries

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 displayicon
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 displayname
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 shortcutpath
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 uninstallstring
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “00308937″
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software0308937

Finally DELETE these files

%Documents and Settings%\All Users\Application Data0308937\pc00308937ins
%Documents and Settings%\All Users\Application Data03089370308937.exe
%Documents and Settings%\All Users\Application Data0308937\config.udb
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\System Security\System Security 2009 Support.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\System Security\System Security 2009.lnk
%UserProfile%\Desktop\System Security 2009.lnk

#########################################################
===============================================================

Thats its for now, more to come later ( hopefully )

I digress….

I thought to myself “hey maybe I should try blogging, I can say more than I can on twitter (which is the only “social media” thing I am fond of). I have a mind that 90% of the time is a swirl of chaos, with ideas popping in and out all the time, some ideas I find so grand I do everything I can to hold onto them and keep them secured in the ever changing chaos that is my brain/mind .. whatever. I have tried on random and various occasions to start writing things out, a book of thoughts and ideas etc, and just cant stick with it – I think I have a sub conscience fear of losing the chaos I have become so fond of, or if I just go ahead and “put my ideas Out There the universe is going to cosmically hear me and steal my visions away….

Proof of concept? I was speaking to my friend about a side project for a program that would be a “Widget” which would allow you to store and sort multiple groups of Emoticons from various online sources; Say there is a smiley set at a web board you like, you save the emoticon images into the widget and it will allow for future [img] [/img] tag link outs on other forums. Long story short, I was at the Mozilla Addons site looking for an update to the imageurlhost plugin and saw the EmotiConverter that was yesterday, I told my friend about the emoticon widget 3 weeks ago ….. meh, either way it just seemed to further slam that coffin nail down.

Yet here I sit, frantically typing away into the dark abyss that is the internet, Im going to update twitter about a new blog-post maybe in the hopes someone will take an interest and hire me out for my dream job….

Oh on a happier note, I found Digsby and I do enjoy its interfacing and layout quite a bit better than Trillian Astra’s , unfortunately it did come with the standard bloatware installer…

Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is now on my system, and so far it is working quite well, even with all my plugins over ridden with the use of the handy Nightly Tester Tools addon.

and so I leave you, with a whiny and cynical blog post, probably just like thousands more that have been posted today…. take it for what its worth ….

In order to sign up you have to give them an email in which they will email you a download link along with some instructions, the current beta release is only for 32 bit windows, but I was able to install it and run it fine on Windows 7.

Let me make a couple of things clear; first, DURING install you are asked if you want to load the ASK.com toolbar and make ASK.com your default search engine!I still havent figured out why developers are still putting these stupid adware/nagware screens into their setup apps, I was more than happy to UNCLICK the default and go on.

Next you are asked to create what is your universal ASTRA account, this is the username that you log into Trillian with and is tied to all of your online accounts, you can also make a Trillian/Astra specific profile for other users to come hunt you down and find out what exactly YOU are all about :-/

After all that is said and done you can set up your accounts and manage them, change the appearance with a few skins and other options – this is where things get a bit hairy, as the “preferences” menu has ALOT of stuff in there , the default chat window layout is similar to the Iphone’s Bubble Chat and I find that quite annoying, it took me a good 30 minutes to actually come across the setting to change the layout to either Simple , Bubble, or Playscript ( i think ) –

Another thing that caught me by surprise was the addition of RSS feeds across the top of the chat windows , at first i thought this was some kind of adware but it actually was just some pre-selected RSS feeds (which again I had to drill down through the preferences to find and edit).

More interesting however is that in order for you to take advantage of some of the features in Astra you need ot have adobe flashplayer 9 installed, I actually do have flash player installed into Firefox ( my default browser ), yet Astra isnt recognizing that its installed, this leads me to believe that the underlying web engine is based on IE ( as i dont have flash player installed on IE ) …

So this chat client will TAKE SOME TIME! to navigate and tweak and make to your own liking.

A couple of cool things is that anytime you get a chat reply a bubble pops up with the username and message down by your system tray, this also happens for sign on / sign off and new email notices. The twitter feed is nice, however it shows on the “friends list” window in an RSS – plain text style and as you highlight your tweets you get a sidebar that shows the last few tweets from that particular user, not exactly my style for an effective interface especially when there are things like Tweetdeck out there.

Honestly, my opinion of Astra after getting it configured as best I could to my liking was, “This is neat, but I really miss the simplicity of Pidgin” , I gave more time to Astra and still kind of feel that there needs to be some refining of the Web(by) 2.0 chat interface … Remember this is still in BETA though, so things may change by the time its ready for its actual release.

I personally am going to keep tinkering with it and get some more use out of it just to see how it works and where things are heading, Im not against this chat client , however due to all the flash and web 2.0 pizazz its going to take some time for users (especially non-techies) to get the hang of…This is definitely something to keep your eye on!

Dont expect much, Ill try to entertain with whatever is on my my mind at any given time I feel like blogging. Mostly geeky techy stuff…