In what can be called the first major online scandal of the 21st Century, scumware Gator (a formerly efficient password reminder program) has become involved in kiddie porno advertising. Recent changes to Gator have included sharing private information with Gator's main servers and the blocking of legitimate advertisers by superimposing Gator ads. Now to all this has been added popup and popunder advertising, some of which is for "preteen sex" (kiddie porno) sites. This is not the first time this has occurred.
Jim of Jimtools.COM had this to say:
"This problem has been going on for several months. Each time the talking heads at Gator explain that it was a "temporary, brief technical problem" and has been resolved -- again. It's not their fault because they are our friends [and] help to make the Internet a safer and more fun place. The bottom line is that they will do anything for money. They only care about kiddie porn when they get caught."
As was mentioned regarding Gator in a previous News Letter article, the basic ethics of what Gator is now doing make it a wholly unsuitable program for anyone. To trust such a program with secret information (passwords, usernames, credit cards, and similar) is utter folly. The Gator public relations representatives have maintained in the past that whereas Gator is ONLY a voluntarily installed program with FULL disclosure at installation, that it really isn't unethical nor wrong for them to do the many reprehensible things they do. This is a lie.
While surfing the BBS (message boards) at EZBoards.COM using Internet Explorer, this reporter received numerous attempts to stealth install Gator via ActiveX. Because we leave ActiveX installs as a "prompt only", it never installed. We kept clicking the "no" choice, which we were forced to do every three to four pages. Had we left the "install signed and safe" control on ActiveX, Gator would have silently installed itself without telling us. There is nothing voluntary nor is there any full disclosure to a stealth install.
It is suggested that anyone who has Gator installed (check in Control Panel--Add/Remove Programs to see if Gator is there) use the superior RoboForm. Gator is a dangerous, malicious program, and it's now serving up child pornography advertising.
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