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Do you use AIM?; You might want to think twice about it!
Topic Started: January 3, 2009, 9:51 pm (165 Views)
HolyIbanez
1000
Ok, so I now know two people who have gotten bad viruses from the adware installed when you install AIM (Viewpoint media player is the adware, it subscribes to ads, some of which contain malicious code). I figured for those of you out there who are open to this lack of security that your anti-virus might miss (and does miss), I would share with you what I use.

For those who are curious, there are alternatives.

My personal favorite is something called pidgin (formerly known as GAIM).

http://www.pidgin.im/

Its free, and open source. It does MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, Google, etc... All at once!

And say yes when it asks you to install GTK+. That is the graphics toolkit it uses to render the graphic portion. You might not need that if you already use other GTK apps on Windows, like The Gimp (a graphical editing application).
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Blue Phoenix
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Administrator-For-Life!
well, i suppose i could have gotten this from Outlook, but what you are saying makes sense. i only go to my usual haunts, which always seemed safe. i'm on my laptop tonight because the home computer is still messed up.

when i get the trojan out of my home computer, i'm trying pidgin!
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Come with me and you'll be in a World of Pure Imagination
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LightSlayer
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Screaming Naked Hot Stuff!!! (Emoticon Guru)
Nope I don't use AIM, but thanks for the info.
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own!" ~Adam Savage
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Star The Wanderer
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¯\(°_o)/¯
My AIM is ancient. Its way out of date and I rarely use it. And the only thing I've gotten from it is a date.... I wouldn't consider her a virus, yet. Mostly because I don't recall the details of the date.
I wanderered in, but I can't wander out until I find the door.


Not that I'm looking real hard for it.
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Roadbuster
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Roadbuster
I have an AIM account, but I use Trillian from Cereluan studios... it runs AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, etc... all at one time. much easier and lighter on the CPU.
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Blue Phoenix
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Administrator-For-Life!
link, please?

and are there any other programs that gather IM systems together?


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Roadbuster
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Roadbuster
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/
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HolyIbanez
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When given a choice of free software, I like going with open source. I like supporting open source projects, and I like being able to look at the code and see what it is doing. I have nothing against Trillian, I just like Pidgin :cool
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Blue Phoenix
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Administrator-For-Life!
hmmm... maybe Holy was right about it being AIM that caused my problem. i turned on AIM tonight and this is what i saw:





AIM may have encountered a problem loading AIM plugins.

AIM recommends you sign in with AIM Plugins disabled (Safe Mode). You will still be able to IM your Buddies.

X Disable AIM Plugins



AIM is now in "Safe Mode'; this means you will be unable to use AIM Plugins. To find out which plugin(s) are causing the problem, try deactivating any plugins you may have recently installed or updated and restarting AIM.

AOL Radio
AOL Mobile
Mail
Games.com
AIM chat
Notes

i never used any of those things... and never wanted them on. wtf?
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spooie
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I use AIM, but am also a Mac owner. With both my G4 PowerMac from 1999 and my Intel Core 2 Duo from 2006, I've yet to encounter a single virus at all.

HOWEVER... AOL just recently FINALLY got around to introduce a new version of AIM for Mac owners, since, I believe, 2003. I had been using the old PPC version with Rosetta, which would randomly quit on me from time to time, because they were too lazy to right an Intel patch. But now that they made a new version for Intel, every time I log on now, it prompts me to download the new version.

I downloaded the new version, but don't particularly care for it, so I went back to the PPC one. Yet... each time I log on, it still prompts me with a new AIM window. I wish it would just go away.
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