Bonzi Buddy
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Bonzi Buddy
The friendly Bonzi Buddy rotating purple mandrill that hides one of the most infamous examples of
spyware.
Bonzi Buddy is an on-screen
software agent from BONZI Software. It is a well-known example of
spyware, with
computer speed, privacy, and ease of use all affected by installing the program.
When someone installs Bonzi Buddy, his or her homepage gets set to www.bonzi.com.
Bonzi Buddy can be installed automatically without user knowledge or consent
via an ActiveX object in Internet Explorer.
The user interface is a rotating purple mandrill that swings across the
screen. The ape tells jokes, reads facts, sings songs, checks the user's e-mail,
and delivers voice advertisements. The interface used to be a green parrot, but
was later changed to the ape interface. Children often install Bonzi Buddy,
seeing the program as a fun toy instead of as an advertising program.
The Bonzi Buddy application uses
Microsoft Agent technology to display the Bonzi ape on-screen and provide
text-to-speech capability.
Many people are skeptical of Bonzi Buddy because it installs quite a lot of
spyware. There are many free replacements for Bonzi Buddy without the spyware.
A class action suit was brought against Bonzi Software on December 4, 2002 due to its
Banner Ads
that appear to be Windows computer alerts, alerting the user that their
IP Address is being broadcast. This deceptive advertising was meant to trick the
user into installing Bonzi Buddy. A settlement was reached on May 27, 2003. Bonzi agreed
to modify their ads so that they looked less like a Windows dialogue box and to
make them more obviously advertisements. Incidentally, using a computer on the
Internet without taking very specific precautions will, generally speaking,
provide that computer's IP address (or the IP address of the local network's
gateway) to the operators of sites being used (as well as to recipients of email
messages). This of and by itself is a fairly minor security concern, though the
IP address is required to conduct certain attacks against the computer.
External links
Home | Up | Keystroke logging | AntiVirus Gold | Bonzi Buddy | C2.LOP | CoolWebSearch | HuntBar | Internet Optimizer | PSGuard | SpyAxe | SpyTrooper | WorldAntiSpy | XXXDial | Zango Messenger | Phone Home | Claria Corporation | Cydoor | New.net
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This guide is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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