Comodo ships Adware Privdog worse than Superfish

[bob3160]

Update - the Superfish, PrivDog etc. scandal is spreading. I told you all this could be the proverbial tip of the iceberg detected, and it seems however true - much more parties were (are) into the same despicable schemes, so cybercriminals can hop onto the this band-waggon of Browser Hijacking as well:
http://www.howtogeek.com/210265/download.com-and-others-bundle-superfish-style-https-breaking-adware/
and two of the top ten downloads on CNET (KMPlayer and YTD) are bundling two different types of HTTPS-hijacking adware,

polonus

Simply having Unchecky installed and running in the background would have prevented the installation of these PUP's
Using the secure download link at Download.com will prevent getting their down-loader which is the cause of much of the unwanted crapp.

[polonus]

Howdy bob3160,

Agree with you here fully and it is great how you educate users into how to better protect themselves, but you should also agree with me that with these stealthy schemes the unaware and uneducated user has to get into a lot of trouble to circumvent these trap-doors not to be fed with crap, junk and undesirable adware.
By coming here on a daily basis and with the Avast support forum education, we know what we are up against, but the average end-user/consumer just clicks and get infested or is abused so that a few rich may sit on some more piles of easy money. And we are living in days where you have to protect yourself, others are not doing this for you, at least no authority as I know of to halt the abuse or even condemn it. We are left out in the cold, we are completely on our own.

Damian

[polonus]

For the time being we still will have to learn and live with bloatware to come with devices
http://www.gfi.com/blog/its-time-for-devices-not-to-ship-with-unwanted-risky-software/
Link article author = Debra Littlejohn Shinder

polonus

[polonus]

But the counter-forces are also active as I see connections now for unknown.prolexic.com
Prolexic is The Global Leader in DDoS Protection and Mitigation.

polonus

[bob3160]

A perfect example of what to use and what to avoid at Download.com

For those of you that would like to try the Vivaldi Browser,
remember this lesson when you go to:
http://download.cnet.com/Vivaldi-Technical-Preview/3000-2356_4-76275671.html?tag=mncol;txt

[Rednose]

It is better to avoid CNET/Download.com completely imo

Greetz, Red.

[CraigB]

I agree  CNET are the worst of the download sites and should be avoided at all costs.

[Para-Noid]

Unfortunately not all software can be downloaded from the vendors site. Case in point...KeyScrambler Personal.
The vendor redirects to cnet.com for the download and there is no "direct download" option. 

[bob3160]

Unfortunately not all software can be downloaded from the vendors site. Case in point...KeyScrambler Personal.
The vendor redirects to cnet.com for the download and there is no "direct download" option.

The key here is "Installer Enabled" if that's not present, the add-on doesn't happen since it's not
using the Download.com Down-loader.
Refer back to my screenshot.

[Asyn]

Back to topic...

PrivDog wants to protect your privacy - by sending data home in clear text
https://blog.hboeck.de/archives/866-PrivDog-wants-to-protect-your-privacy-by-sending-data-home-in-clear-text.html

[polonus]

And the scandal and the extent of this scam is spreading rapidly.
Also now av-vendor programs are being affected by this -some products of Bitdefender affected:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=167065.0

It seems now that some Bitdefender products also are found to break HTTPS certificate revocation
using the poorly designed Komodia HTTPS interception library.:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2889692/some-bitdefender-products-break-https-certificate-revocation.html

Komodia-like scam schemes all over the Interwebs now and root-certificates being revoked.
MS should sweep the broom through certification and take the manipulators out and certain issuers of certificates should clean up their act or else deal with the consequences.

How reliable can this info be as Bitdefender already fell through - http://safestdownloads.net/komodia-free-ssl-sniffer-safe-download.aspx
With whom Israeli Komodia certificate issuers closed their deals and what skeletons are still hanging out there in the Komodia cupboard? Read here: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/529496

polonus

[polonus]

By the way did this help Komodia or was Google aware of what was coming?
Were they already aware of the giant scale scandalous cert manipulations  .
Read here what they probably foresaw coming already in 2012:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/google-strips-chrome-of-ssl-revocation-checking/
and here: https://www.imperialviolet.org/2012/02/05/crlsets.html
And end-users have short memories and are now being duped.
Know the problem has been with us since the turn of the century: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-254586.html
In windows in command prompt check certificate revocation and give in:

certutil -f –urlfetch -verify [FilenameOfCertificate]

example:

certutil -f –urlfetch -verify mycertificatefile.cer

Also read this, going back to 2012: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/14/crime_tls_attack/

polonus