[pchelpers] Kontiki, Spybot, pcmag's quality, best download managers, PayPal

Hi Eric

I just stumbled across pchelpers while trying to find info about the 
same program you asked about, Kontiki. I'd found the 2002 pcmag.com 
article that recommended this as the best download manager but was 
suspicious because i remembered reading elsewhere that almost all 
download managers are or install spyware and seemed to remember having 
seen something specifically about Kontiki in Spybot or elsewhere.

Well, i spent quite a long time researching this because there is a lot 
of contradictory info on Kontiki available in the Net. Part of the 
problem was also that i wasn't patient enough to look for where info is 
provided by Spybot on its Web site and in the program itself (see 
below), which is understandable since the layout of both is not good for 
finding this info -- although i consider the program and its info the 
best and most reliable available.

Unfortunately, the excellent Spybot doesn't have a search engine on its 
Web site (www.safer-networking.org) and only a poorly functioning one 
for its forums. And it's very strange that Google searches (e.g. kontiki 
site:spybot.safer-networking.de) do not find any info on the Spybot site.

The following will help you find spyware info quickly and reliably next 
time:

The site's layout is a problem too; one first only finds the old 
assessment of Kontiki being spyware (on the Knowledge Base / Threats 
list), which is the same that's in the program itself too. (Well hidden 
i.e. confusingly under Info & License / Product Info). Only if one 
notices the small link News / All articles, does one find the following 
info, which i quote from the source i found it at because it gives 
well-deserved credit to Spybot's excellent efforts to keep us reliably 
safe on the Net (Ad-Aware still flags Kontiki as spyware):

Kontiki seems to have been a problem, but it's changed:
http://www.pc3.org/news/archives/april03.htm
Kontiki No Longer A Threat

So, if you have an older version of Kontiki, uninstall it!

The following info i collected in this Kontiki search has made me even 
more suspicious of the independence and/or competence of PC Magazine's 
recommendations, which are inevitably an expensive program of one of the 
biggies and usually ignore or even put down free programs, even when 
they're much better (another example: AVG):

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,28488,00.asp
2002 pcmag's editor's choice: Kontiki
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1094855,00.asp
2003 pcmag no longer recommends it
Some seem to say it's spyware:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,365073,00.asp
others say it's not:
http://discuss.pcmag.com/pcmag/messages?msg=30921.9&mode=simple
http://forums.gamespot.com/gamespot/board/message?board.id=sitechanges&message.id=92
(but this is a forum on Kontiki's distributor's/manufacturer's site!)
Ad-Aware seems to identify it as spyware:
http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10214379.html?tag=lst-0-1

And here are some much better download managers than those recommended 
by pcmag.com that i haven't tried but that come from or were recommended 
by reliable sources:

http://www.freshdevices.com/
recommended on http://discuss.pcmag.com/pcmag/messages?msg=30921.17
(see also http://discuss.pcmag.com/pcmag/messages?msg=30921.21)

http://www.stardownloader.com/

http://wp.netscape.com/download/smartdownload.html
SmartDownload

Got carried away writing this long message, but i hope you and others 
found most of it informative.

Cheers, Ekhart


PS: Don't use PayPal to donate to the wonderful man who provides Spybot 
for free -- i sent him this warning too and hope he will come up with a 
better method soon (quoted from vacm@xxxxxxxxxx's newsletter):

*********************************************************
* PayPal is DANGEROUS...
*********************************************************
If you haven't heard about the scams PayPal is perpetrating
on its members, find out today...
    http://www.paypalwarning.com/

You owe it to yourself to find out the trouble with PayPal...
(BTW, C2IT.COM is a "real" bank, FDIC, regulated and may be
your best choice as a safe alternative to PayPal)



-- 

Ekhart GEORGI

___________________________________________________________________
PS: Please include this message in your reply so that it contains
my antispam and antivirus password (www.livingwithoutmicrosoft.org).
Thanks!
___________________________________________________________________


Regards, John Durham (list moderator) <http://modecideas.com/contact.html?sig>
Freelists login at http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi
List archives at http://www.freelists.org/archives/pchelpers
PC-HELPERS list subscribe/unsub at http://modecideas.com/discuss.htm?sig
Good advice is like good paint- it only works if applied.

Other related posts: