|Forum|Articles|Suckware. By Cyber Seduction and Anubis   Suckware March 5 2002 at 5:09 PM Anubis THE DARK NEW WORLD OF *WARE I am sure everyone in here can remember a time when a program was a innocent thing, nothing but an icon representing some code that you could execute when you needed to accomplish a particular task. Oh, how the times have changed. Now every piece of software has strings attached, if the only poor feature a piece of software has is an architecture that eats up unnecessary system resources you are lucky, more likely is that you will be assaulted by an onslaught of ads and spam while the program runs up your internet bill behind your back sending your personal information to someone else, or any other number of bad things. CORRUPTGRADES corruptgrades are upgrades to programs that remove features the original program had, usually so the company can make you pay extra to get the features back. Most of the time these programs will delete any other versions of themselves without your permission to prevent you from downgrading once you realize the new version is a piece of crap. Quicktime is a good example. BLOATWARE Bloatware is software made for the primary purpose of forcing a user to upgrade his computer. Bloatware does this by glomming a bunch of unnecessary processor intensive code onto the programs core functions to inflate the system requirements. Microsoft Office is a good example BLOCKGRADE A blockgrade is an upgrade to a program that serves no use other than to change a programs file format, so that everyone will have to pay for the program again if they want to continue using it. Stuffit Expander is a good example BUGWARE A bugware program is when a company can not afford adequate beta testing and releases the beta of a program as a final version, so the users will find the bugs for them. The end result is that the users who buy the program when it first comes out will be greeted with a piece of buggy crap that sucks harder than Cleopatra 2525. The people that wait to buy the program will have to download an upgrade from the companies website, this gives the company a way to add some spamware(see below) to the mix. Myth 3 would be a good example of bugware. SPYWARE The latest buzzword, spyware is software that has a secondary function of collecting user data and sending it to a remote server for the company to use for its own purposes. The good thing about the current spyware scare is that it is allowing the Humans to see the dark world of computing we are speeding towards. iTools would be an example of spyware. SELF DESTRUCTIVE CODE Software with self destructive code is software that is designed to destroy itself after certain criteria are met. Most commonly these criteria are a certain date or a command from the companies server. Self destructive code is a scorched earth way for companies to force users to upgrade. OpenGL is an example of a program with self destructive code. GUILTWARE Guiltware is a form of sharware that pops up a dialog box or otherwise informs you that you have been using this program for X number of hours and you should really pay for it. Guiltware is one of the most benign classes of software I have listed in here. Cyclone would be an example of guiltware. NAGWARE Nagware is similar to guiltware in that it is shareware that makes it very clear to the user that he should upgrade. The primary difference between guiltware and nagware is that guiltware tries to make the user feel guilty for not paying for the software by showing how long the user has been using it, while nagware simply pops up dialog boxes nagging the user to upgrade. Escape Velocity is an example of nagware TROJANWARE Trojanware is software the is designed to be a vessel for other software. When the software is installed or ran, the secondary software is installed on the users computer where it then runs independently of the parent program. Formerly only a tool used by hackers to infiltrate a system or launch a virus, companies have taken to using this system to get their other *ware onto a computer. When hackers do this it is illegal, but I guess since they are companies, it makes it ok. CRIPPLEWARE Crippleware is software that has most of its features disabled, to gain access to these disabled features one must buy a serial number from the company. I can remember a time when putting out crippleware was seen a low down and unethical, but in todays world crippleware does not seem that bad, at least the company is being straight with its users. Coldstone would be an example of crippleware NOISY Noisy software is software that attempts to connect to the internet without your permission, many times when you are not even running the program. Most spyware is also noisy, because it has to connect to a server before it can give away your data. Quicktime would be an example of noisy software SPAMWARE. Spamware is software that exists for the primary purpose of harvesting email addresses for spam mailing lists. Many company graft spamware into their registration programs and websites. VNC would be an example of spamware. ADWARE Adware is software that has the secondary function of displaying ads. In my opinion it is acceptable to put adware in free software that must be connected to the internet to serve its primary function, such as AIM, but is unacceptable in programs that are supposed to be run offline, or in programs that you paid for. Sherlock is an example of adware. CONTROLWARE Controlware is software that can be controlled remotely by the company. This allows the company to force you to upgrade, change or erase competitors programs, read you documents, restart your computer, or do anything else they want to. A user should avoid installing controlware at all costs. Windows XP is an example of controlware. Welcome to our hell. SOFTWARE You dont see much of this anymore. Software is just what the name says, software. No strings attached. It does only what it is told, nothing more. It does not steal information from you , spam you with ads, or force you to upgrade. The company does not use it to get your email address or take control of your computer. ClarisWorks, the program I wrote this in, is an example of software. Its a dying breed. (You are probably wondering why I have been slamming corporate America and been making all these death predictions about our computing futures lately. Well thanks to OS X, I have no computing future.) Suckware II March 8 2002 at 8:46 AM Cyber Seduction (no login) Reading the post made by Anubis I found myself mentally pointing out the programs that I either use or encounter that fit into each of the catagories presented. And it occured to me that I have encountered a few more. HYPEWARE Hypeware is software that is purposly advertised as something much more than it is. If you choose to believe the hype you buy the software, take it home, and install it only to find that it is not nearly as good as it was made out to be. This happens alot with gaming software. SCREWWARE Screwware is software that makes you think you have been given a good deal because it is either free or very cheap. But after install the program requires either a second program, a patch, or an upgrade to run at all. And usually this second program/patch/upgrade is quite expensive. Sometimes this type of software is presented as "freeware". HITWARE Hitware is something that is few and far between at the present time. Hitware is software that is generally cheap and crappy and designed to make the user NEED to return to a website, not to download or pay, but usually for information. This requirement forces the user to return to the website on many occasions, thus upping the hit counter on the website so that the website becomes more trafficed. I am sure the most novice of business students can see the potential monetary value of that. BUNNYWARE When you install bunnyware it puts a copy of itself in at least 5 places but only makes one easily viewable. The user believes that he/she has only one installed copy of the program and accepts that as fact. When the time comes to uninstall bunnyware, the user uninstalls only the copy they see leaving all the other copies on the computer. This software is designed to keep the program on the computer even after deletion in hopes that the user will one day use the program again. The seeming multiplication of bunnyware is how it gets its name.   I hope this second look into the seedy underworld of software development as been as informative as the first steps made by Anubis. *ware March 8 2002 at 10:32 AM Anubis (no login) BACKDOORWARE Backdoorware is software that has a backdoor built into it by the parent company, so that they can bully you around at a later date. This backdoor is almost always brought to light when a hacker discovers it and uses it to bring down everyones computers. Morpheus is a good example.   Syntax Error/:|Forum|Articles|