December 12, 2005
Not All Cookies Are Bad
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
Cookies (the ones that can be placed on your computer system, not the ones you eat), are not always bad things. Unfortunately many of the anti-adware and anti-spyware programs currently on the market seem to have difficulty differentiating acceptable cookies from non-acceptable cookies. An example of an acceptable cookie is one that is created when you are shopping online. In order to properly track where you may have found a particular link (so the source can get credit, which is only fair), a cookie may be put on your computer. The kind of information stored might be what site referred you, and how many days have passed between your original visit to a store from that referral and your actually purchasing something. The reason for this is that sometimes the referring site may be entitled to a small referral fee from the store you shop at. This does not affect the price you pay, but is instead a thank-you to the referring site for helping to spread the word about the store. This cookie expires after a certain number of days (different stores have different numbers of days). These are not bad cookies, but preventing them from being stored is bad for the referring sites (they don't get the credit they deserve) . I'm sure you agree that is very unfair.
Anti-spyware and anti-adware programs need to be more conscientious and not classify these cookies as bad and immediately purge or quarantine them. Help get this problem addressed. Forward this article to the maker of your favorite anti-spyware and anti-adware programs.
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R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
Cookies (the ones that can be placed on your computer system, not the ones you eat), are not always bad things. Unfortunately many of the anti-adware and anti-spyware programs currently on the market seem to have difficulty differentiating acceptable cookies from non-acceptable cookies. An example of an acceptable cookie is one that is created when you are shopping online. In order to properly track where you may have found a particular link (so the source can get credit, which is only fair), a cookie may be put on your computer. The kind of information stored might be what site referred you, and how many days have passed between your original visit to a store from that referral and your actually purchasing something. The reason for this is that sometimes the referring site may be entitled to a small referral fee from the store you shop at. This does not affect the price you pay, but is instead a thank-you to the referring site for helping to spread the word about the store. This cookie expires after a certain number of days (different stores have different numbers of days). These are not bad cookies, but preventing them from being stored is bad for the referring sites (they don't get the credit they deserve) . I'm sure you agree that is very unfair.
Anti-spyware and anti-adware programs need to be more conscientious and not classify these cookies as bad and immediately purge or quarantine them. Help get this problem addressed. Forward this article to the maker of your favorite anti-spyware and anti-adware programs.
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Product Review: CounterSpy 1.5
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
CounterSpy is an anti-spyware product from Sunbelt Software (http://www.sunbelt-software.com/). CounterSpy is $19.95 per machine. The price includes a one year subscription with updates, upgrades and US-based technical support. According to the website, it is the only anti-spyware product that gets regular spyware threat database updates from three sources: Sunbelt's own Spyware Research Team, CounterSpy users that are a member of their ThreatNet Community, and from Microsoft's spyware research group.
The computer on which this software was installed and tested is running Windows XP-Home and has both administrator and non-administrator ids. For safe computing, all work other than installation of software is done from non-administrator ids.
The product installed without incident, and it was easy, from the administrator id, to check for updates. The product was set up to do automatic updates. Running a scan of the hard disk (currently contains 15.2G of data) took half an hour.
As stated above, for safe computing, all work other than installation of software is done from non-administrator ids. This proved to be problematic for CounterSpy. It was never able to download the latest updates from non-admininstrator ids. Initially this was thought to be a connection problem, but it soon became apparent that the product is set up to only allow automatic updates to work when logged in as an administrator. This is not a problem I have had with other anti-spyware products from other vendors. The only way to download the updates is to log into the administrator id. This makes this product less usable on a properly set up pc. Further, downloading the updates did not then prompt the installation of those updates.
CounterSpy seems to be somewhat counter-intuitive to the concept of preventing unauthorized products and access to one's pc, by requiring the user to be logged in as an administrator in order to properly be able to use the product.
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
CounterSpy is an anti-spyware product from Sunbelt Software (http://www.sunbelt-software.com/). CounterSpy is $19.95 per machine. The price includes a one year subscription with updates, upgrades and US-based technical support. According to the website, it is the only anti-spyware product that gets regular spyware threat database updates from three sources: Sunbelt's own Spyware Research Team, CounterSpy users that are a member of their ThreatNet Community, and from Microsoft's spyware research group.
The computer on which this software was installed and tested is running Windows XP-Home and has both administrator and non-administrator ids. For safe computing, all work other than installation of software is done from non-administrator ids.
The product installed without incident, and it was easy, from the administrator id, to check for updates. The product was set up to do automatic updates. Running a scan of the hard disk (currently contains 15.2G of data) took half an hour.
As stated above, for safe computing, all work other than installation of software is done from non-administrator ids. This proved to be problematic for CounterSpy. It was never able to download the latest updates from non-admininstrator ids. Initially this was thought to be a connection problem, but it soon became apparent that the product is set up to only allow automatic updates to work when logged in as an administrator. This is not a problem I have had with other anti-spyware products from other vendors. The only way to download the updates is to log into the administrator id. This makes this product less usable on a properly set up pc. Further, downloading the updates did not then prompt the installation of those updates.
CounterSpy seems to be somewhat counter-intuitive to the concept of preventing unauthorized products and access to one's pc, by requiring the user to be logged in as an administrator in order to properly be able to use the product.
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