180 Solutions get with the program!

Huh?

I admit, they caught me by surprise. Here I was, ready to moan (again) about the fact that none of the companies at the Antispyware conference a few months back had gone for Esther Dyson's idea of pumping out popups, telling people who might not want the software (due to unauthorised installs) how to remove said programs.

And 180 Solutions go and blow a perfect write up with their honesty dealing! Aargh! Hours of rubbish jokes, ruined! However...

Let it not be said that I just bitch and moan endlessly for the sake of it. We asked for it, we moaned for it, we raged about it, and...someone went and did it. Whether this is a response to the rather large writing on the wall or not, I don't really care. The point is, someone went and did it.

And a big, fat well done goes to 180 Solutions for having the guts to send people adverts with "Wanna' uninstall me?" all over them.

Let me say this...I have no beef with people who want your programs, nor you making money from it. None whatsover. Or any other company, come to think of it. What I have always had a problem with is unauthorised installs, dubious disclosures and uttery useless "mega-bundles" which just cripple PCs completely. You know it goes on, I know it goes on and so does everyone else. The problem has always been, well, what do you do about it?

Nobody is suggesting for one second that the previous unwanted installs should be somehow forgiven or forgotten, but then I can't think of any greater punishment than having to pop up ads on your own network asking for uninstalls anyway (though as we now know, these ads don't actually phrase it quite like that!)

And now there will hopefully be immense pressure (in terms of publicity and general oh-my-Godness) on the other major companies out there to do the same thing. What does this mean in real terms?

It means myself, and others like me, will see some sort of reduction in people asking us help them remove software they didn't ask for in the first place. This not only means I can spend some more time outside playing with the cats (rather than slumped in front of a keyboard 24 / 7), it means I might someday achieve my vision of canning an aspect of this site once and for all.

What's that?

Yeah, you heard me. This site was resurrected, Phoenix-like to rage against the woes of the Interweb until they were sorted out because after two years absence, I returned online to see that the digital world sucked and blowed. In fact, it was in a worse mess than when I left it. So I dusted off Vitalsecurity.net and dragged it kicking and screaming back to the land of the living. I'm amazed that the original intent of this site from 2001 (covering hackers, web defacements and the like) has had to be shelved entirely in favour of policing real world companies, with tables and chairs and guys in suits with cool-looking laptops that make money. Why the Hell is this? Why aren't I playing with my cats?

At any rate, I'd love to know when Claria and Direct Revenue will be following suit.