Comet Cursor not Spyware claim founders. Just Crapware!

June 6, 2002 1:03 PM

Comet Cursor not Spyware claim founders. Just Crapware! "The information we were logging was completely useless, except for charging sites for cursor impressions," said Rosen, who pointed out in Lavasoft's forums that Comet Systems is a company of programmers, not marketeers. "You may believe that our software is buggy, in which case you may conclude we're lame, but we're not running a direct marketing business like some of the other malware/adware/spyware companies on your list," Rosen wrote.
posted by srboisvert (5 comments total)

I didn't really care if it was spyware or not. It was just annoying, worthless, and difficult to get rid of. To say they weren't also spying on us seems almost besides the point.
posted by UnReality at 1:55 PM on June 6, 2002

You go into a bar and introduce yourself as working for Comet Systems

Worst pickup line. Ever.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:54 PM on June 6, 2002

"It feels like a lynch mob. There's a lot of vicious people shouting at us," said Rosen, Comet's chairman.

And you deserve every little bit of it. Any big ass pop-up Active-X installer just screams, "We couldnt get you to download this through normal means so here's a big dialog box to get this on your machine!" Worse, if your IE settings aren't set to uber-protection (MS makes this the default now) this software installs itself. Maybe not the new version of Comet Cursor, but certainly the old ones installed themselves and it takes a reboot to get rid of it after the uninstall. It really is crap software, a lot of tech support issues I've had to deal with at work involved simply removing Comet Cursor, among other free crap, and the problems would magically go away.

Rosen doesn't even address what the sniffers were picking up from his software. Sometimes bad things happen to bad people.
posted by skallas at 5:11 PM on June 6, 2002

"Hey baby, wanna try out my special pointer?"

"No, and get your Link Selector off my Tooltips."
posted by dhartung at 6:28 PM on June 6, 2002

"Hi I work for Comet systems."

"Wow, what a coincidence, I work for Lavasoft"

"Does that mean I'm getting your number?"

"..."
posted by samsara at 11:33 AM on June 7, 2002