-
All replies
-
Helpful answers
-
May 23, 2013 7:28 AM in response to Genieo supportby lindsayfromleander,Dear Mr. Genieo support,
It appears from a fairly cursory amount of online research (all I have time for considering that your product is one I don't want) that you have a serious branding and reputation issue, over and above the issue of the fake Adobe installer. It is said that a man is known by the company ("partners") he keeps. If you're serious about cleaning up your act and providing a quality, responsible product, perhaps you might want to call it something else going forward, as far removed from the label "Genieo" as you can get. If you feel that the bad rep your product has gotten is just the result of bad, ignorant people or competitors who hate you trying to bring you down, then I guess there's no help for it. Perhaps it's time, as the saying goes, to put on your big-girl panties and deal with it.
As naja_trance pointed out, you've had plenty of time to address this issue much more aggressively and have apparently failed to do so previously, which in itself isn't very reassuring.
-
May 23, 2013 9:01 AM in response to lindsayfromleanderby gen_,Lindsay, seeing as you can barely define malware, I don't think it's your place to be giving software business advice. You need to remove the chip from your shoulder and think about if from thier side. If you had paid for your software to be marketed and the marketing people used deception to do so then it's going to hurt your reputation even if it isnt your fault. I am somewhat sympathetic to the company involved, regardelss of the product.
Right now you sound suspiciously like a competitor trying to destroy someones name, and there is a uncalled for venom in your town. Relax, the situation is sorted. The internet is a big place, I can fully expect something Genieo to not find these popups were distributing thier product for six months, especially if the Genieo people are intelligent enough to avoid pop-ups. If it happens again, then there will be an issue.
-
May 23, 2013 9:58 AM in response to gen_by lindsayfromleander,Actually, gen_, I have no axe to grind here, other than a deeply ingraned dislike of shady business practices. I came on the fake Adobe install in the course of my own browsing and did about 20 minutes of online research on "genieo" and ended up here. In this, my perspective has the distinct value of being totally fresh and impartial at the outset and my admittedly minimal research came up with a lot of negative stuff about Genieo - far more, compared to positive comments, than one might expect from an effective, popular product (such as Microsoft Windows) which might generate a full spectrum of negative and positive opinions. I feel the same way about The Domain Registry of America and all its aliases, which is totally legal.
I don't need to define "malware", gen_, to you or anyone else. As someone else said, any software which tries to install on my computer using deception is malware, and that's all the definition I need. There are also enough threads on other forums explaining how to uninstall Genieo indicating that this is, or at one time was, also an issue, and a common characteristic of "malware" by any definition.
I'm outa here. I primarily run Linux, and don't have a MacBook, so I don't even belong on this branch of the forum, which I joined because I have an iMac. My time is limited today and for the next week, so anyone who feels offended by my responses can relax, since I won't be responding further.
I offer a sincere apology to anyone who was off-put by my comments. I think the debate here has been broad enough that the truth will out. Maybe the Genieo people have cleaned up their act, I don't know. What's obvious is that if this is the case, they have some work to do.
-
May 23, 2013 10:54 AM in response to lindsayfromleanderby gen_,The problem is, by your very own definition, Geneio isn't malware.
"I don't need to define "malware", gen_, to you or anyone else. As someone else said, any software which tries to install on my computer using deception is malwareGenieo doesn't try to install on your computer using deception. You downloaded it through deception, but you do not install it it unwillingly, as it is named 'InstallGeneio' so you know what you're getting and it is not using any 'malware-like -method' to install itself without your say so. The only way it can get on your computer is through your own lack of vigilance. The multitude of stupid people on the internet does nothing to change that. I am fine with helping people to remove an application they have downloaded by accident, but to suggest this is malware when it does not disrupt computer operation, attempt to gather data, gain priveledges or (afaik) slow down or inhibit your Mac in anyway other than delivering ads in your browser is akin to suggesting a firecracker is a weapon of mass destruction. No, it's an annoyance at best.
Worse than that, you are installing it. You know you are installing it. You have the uninstaller so you can remove it at a moments notice. To call it malware trivialises the real threats out there. It's a PUP, by strict anti-virus definition. 'A protentially-unwanted-program' and an extremely mild one at that. Keyloggers also come under PUPs and I know you would be a **** sight more concerned if you had installed that on your machine.
One more thing, that Adobe Flash advert could have had any file behind it. It still would have caused an uproar if auser doesnt know how to uninstall it. Be thankful it didnt contain a relabled MacKeeper or some such. Then you'd really know what Malware is.
-
May 23, 2013 11:01 AM in response to lindsayfromleanderby thomas_r.,I don't think anyone would disagree with a dislike of shady business practices. The question is, whose business practices are shady? It's still a bit unclear. In this case, it looks like one of Genieo's partners was misbehaving. Perhaps this was just a one-time thing with a dishonest partner. Perhaps there's a flaw in Genieo's partner program that encourages this sort of monkey business. Then again, perhaps Genieo itself is dishonest. After all, there are some other suspicious things, like a URL found in the executable file that appears to link to a codecm.dmg file. (Codec-M, aka FkCodec, is spyware. See OSX/FkCodec-A in action.)
Without more information, it's impossible to say which is the most likely case. For now, I choose to follow the creed of "innocent until proven guilty." However, at the same time, I would advise caution with any Genieo products. I probably would advise removing Genieo if you have it installed, mostly because what it does isn't really worth the risks.
If Genieo is truly honest and wants to build a reputable product, they will have to find a way to overcome this hurdle, or it will (unfortunately) trip them up and make them fall.
-
May 23, 2013 5:32 PM in response to Javier23golby MadMacs0,Thomas has been busy digging deeper into this today, so I thought I'd jump in with a couple of updates that seem to be feeding each other for anybody that's interested.
Intego, developer of VirusBarrier, jumped into this today in their Malware blog with Another Problematic Softonic Installer Brings Adware. The bottom line:
Intego VirusBarrier users with up-to-date virus definitions will detect the components of this threat as OSX/Genio.
So now we can officially refer to this as malware, even if they seem to have misspelled it.
And Thomas updated his blog with even More details on Genieo adware.
-
May 23, 2013 6:03 PM in response to MadMacs0by thomas_r.,Thanks, I ran out the door almost right after writing that, so hadn't had a chance to update anyone yet.
-
May 24, 2013 6:06 AM in response to thomas_r.by thomas_r.,So, now that I have more time, I've got a hard question for the Genieo representative who is watching this topic. Why did I find code in the Genieo installer that looks like it downloads and installs the Codec-M (aka FkCodec) malware, on behalf of a partner with ID "webpic?"
-
May 25, 2013 10:44 AM in response to naja_tranceby gen_,I won't bring back blocked posts, but I will highlight something to end this thought process for naja.
As it stands, Adware is malware. Until the review in depth allowed us to know that this was Adware it was not malware. I still stand by my previous posts.
Earlier in this thread, Thomas made a very important statement.
"People certainly should make up their own minds, but they should do so with all the facts at hand."
I did. The fact was that until we found the proof in this program we could not say it was malware. At the current time, by your own definitions it was not malware.
-
May 25, 2013 11:50 AM in response to gen_by naja_trance,that's the point where we do not agree at all :
gen_ wrote:
I did. The fact was that until we found the proof in this program we could not say it was malware. At the current time, by your own definitions it was not malware.
you are talking about the program (the code ...) and for you that is enough to put (or not) the software in the malware category ; but i really do think that definition of malicious behaviour includes both the program itself, but also the whole strategy of the company ...
for example, a program that does collect informations about users in a non-hidden process, and say that informations won't be used by the company for any other reasons than customers-relation is totally NOT defined as malware, and nobody (nobody aka malware specialists) cares about the real way of acting of the company, even if company does NOT respect privacy, and sells hundreds of "non-stolen" emails every month ...
you have here a perfect clean software acting in a malicious startegy !
i DO really think that "bad coding" is not the only possible way for a company for "acting bad", so i think, IMHO, that it is a nonsense if bad code/clean code is the only point to be studied to put (or not) a software in the malware category ...
before Thomas has founded the piece of code pointing to codec malware, and before Genieo was classed as malware by intego (the "current time" of the quotes), Genieo was already involved in a "malicious strategy" with this fake flash update, and IMHO again, i don't really care about if Genieo was really (or not) clean about this strategy : Genieo is taking partners, and delegates part of its strategy ? that's their choice, BUT then, they ARE (imho again lol) totally responsible of the ways of acting of these partners !
-
May 25, 2013 7:14 PM in response to Javier23golby Dante X,I agree that it is malware--it masqueraded as a necessary download ,to upgrade Adobe Flash Player. This discussion is all fine people, but let's get practical: how do I uninstall it? I've tried everything I can think of.
-
May 25, 2013 8:00 PM in response to Dante Xby MadMacs0,Dante X wrote:
how do I uninstall it? I've tried everything I can think of.
I thought that had already been covered, but since this has gotten rather large, it's not surprising that you cannot find it.
-
May 25, 2013 10:40 PM in response to Dante Xby BZ-LA,Did you check out the process I outlined near the beginning of this discussion?
-
May 25, 2013 11:47 PM in response to BZ-LAby MadMacs0,BZ-LA wrote:
Did you check out the process I outlined near the beginning of this discussion?
I know that I did and you mentioned "I do not know if this will remove all Genieo files". I can report from my testing that it leave a number of files behind that have been tucked into various Library directories. Running the supplied uninstaller seemed to have taken care of all of them, including the preference file.
The web site above also includes instructions for fixing the search provider in Safari, as well as fixing Chrome and Firefox browsers, if users also have those.
-
May 26, 2013 12:22 AM in response to Dante Xby gen_,Dante, use the uninstaller.
If anything, this says how good apps for OSX generally are. Most people arent even aware of the existance of uninstallers.
Also, read the thread. I think you'll find that your reasoning was used by another member and we had a little talk about it.
Finally, where did you get Genieo from, we literally had Genieo support on the thread a few pages back and they claimed to have taken down the website that it came from.. is it still masquerading, and could you tell us where?