Frostwire is now a malware
 

Had the displeasure to install Frostwire a few days ago.
Just terrible.
First they want to install the toolbar and even ask "are you sure" when refused. Well, yes, I'M SURE, I don't want your ad-ware.
But worst of all they now use hidden folders .netshare for hidden torrents that are not documented and not found in the configuration panel. That is a viral behavior.
And then they automatically, without asking for permission, start downloading 1.4Gb video via a torrent.
These Froswire devs are turning into real scumbags.
Frostwire needs to be forked.

File_Girl did a version of FW without the toolbars & other junk. Not sure about the other issue.

.netshare sounds like a common p2p network file to me. File_Girl could correct me there.
Downlloadinig a torrent without your permission .. yikes. What was the file?

The .networkshare is a hidden and nowhere documented folder that holds torrents that Frostwire automatically distributes without permission from the user.
The torrent in question is called "Four Eyed Monsters" and it's a 1.4 Gb film.
It also seems Frostwire checks for updates (transmitting who knows what information in the process) without giving the option to disable the feature.
I will never accept automatic updates from any app on my computer and if the app does not give me a choice I will stop using it.
The film is distributed as part of their new Frosclick endeavor.
I don't care what they do on Frostclick but they can't use my bandwidth without asking me first.

Frostwire, is it safe?
 

Shapeshifter910

What you have said about Frostwire is very disturbing, especially the part about distributing torrents without the user's permission:However, I will confirm what LOTR has said about File_Girl's version of FW, i.e. it does not have any junk in it. Also, it does not ask you to or perform an automatic torrents download, I know this because I installed and used FW last Saturday.

But you are right about the normal version of FW, it does ask if you want to download (I think) Google's toolbar, which most free apps and utilities do nowadays (even CCleaner), and (I remember) an auto torrent download which I cancelled and deleted.

As for checking for updates, all applications do that but I understand that File_Girl's version does not.

However, I am not aware of FW uploading or distributing itself or anything else without permission and so using my bandwidth for it's own ends. In fact, that's the reason I no longer use LW because the LW org. was using my bandwidth to aid in LW distribution without any form of notification or warning.

Finally, I am very paranoid about my PC's security and I will certainly be watching out for any viral behaviour from FW but since I now use File_Girl's cleaned up version I doubt if any of the problems you are worried about still exist.


UK Bob

PS. File_Girl, you are a bright shining star, thank you for the work you have done.

Thanks ukbobboy01 for you comment about FW...I found the new version 4.21.1 of FW verry suspect, which installed a load of crapp even i say N0 to every thing they offer me...My home page was changed to Ask dot com, and they put what they called "Open Candy" on my pc as well, which is only useless crapp...They also added like LW did a Auto-Update function which can be used to manny other things like ukbobboy01 mention about in his post above!

I think the new FW 4.21.1 can do this, and i do not like it....The FW 4.20.9 the one i fixed as ukbobboy01 telling about does not have the behavior as shapshifter910 tells us about...I do believe shapeshifter910 tells us about is the reality of the new fw 4.21.1...I also think FW will be the next target for RIAA, they only need to kill LW for good first! I would not be suprised to see if LW ending up like BearShare did, and become a iMesh clone!

PS:Btw LOTR i also notice that folder as shapeshifter910 mention ".netshare", but i think it is not Malware like that...Yes i also noticed the same torrent file called "Four Eyed Monsters" in FW version 4.21.1, but in the version i fixed is this folder not there...

Most of our .xxx folders are there to not bother the user with things they don't understand. No malicious code anywhere, go ahead and checkout our repo.

If they're undocumented, by all means go to our repo (frostwire / frostwire / overview), read the code and document away, help is needed. We could use people making youtube videos explaining what things are and why they are there.

The promo's usually have a "Download Now" button, if not it's pretty obvious that if you click you'll start downloading a torrent. These promo's are there for no cost to the Content Creators and they are a show case of what legal p2p is and how the network can be used to their advantage. We have help distribute several million legal downloads of movies, music albums and software. We are friends of Vodo.net and other organizations looking to promote free content. Thanks for calling us scumbags before talking to us.

The Ask toolbar offer has been there for years, if you can read you will not install it, if you do you can help the project continuity.

As of 4.21.x FrostWire we have now implemented automatic updates via BitTorrent, this way we eat our own food to distribute our technology, we have still not rolled out the first automatic update, this will happen for 4.21.2 once it's ready.

So nope, no malware, we'll never do malware, we're not that stupid.

Feel free to visit our forum's at http://frostwire.com/forums

We'll soon be activating the Mojito DHT aswell (in case anybody is wondering).

The FrostWire Team

Does 'any' user of any software really appreciated auto-updates of the software they use?

Some like myself like to read user feedback on update reports before updating their software. Not being forced to update without a choice. For some professional programs this can render the program unusable, or buggy/problematic & ruin the projects they are working on.

For p2p software, we saw what happened to LW with auto updates, same thing happened to Foxy with auto updates. People will sit at home nervously wondering when it is going to happen with FW. The concept of auto update is 'control', which lots of people do not appreciate.

Do FW devs drop by these forums much btw. :)

Ha must stupid thing i ever have heared about is this:


We all know what Ask Toolbar is...It's Adware and why did FrostWire change my home page and set it to Ask dot com even i unchecked all your fancy offers of crapp...Btw glubatron you not mention enny thing about Open Candy or???

It is quite simple. If a user can't opt out of something, then you have to make the user aware of this. If you want to promote something, then make it clear to the user what you are promoting. Doing things "behind the scenes" is generally not liked. A good example would be the recent Adobe reader downloads, where until enough users got furious about it, there was an already checked "Include MacAfee Security Scan" nicely hidden away from sight at the very bottom of the page.

While I'm sure you aren't breaking laws by doing this, you are losing the clients trust. And the "If you read closely enough" I'm afraid doesn't fly.

Your site says: No Spyware. No Adware. Guaranteed. http://www.frostwire.com/ Shouldn't it be. "Choice to opt out of adware install."?

What is Ask if I may ask? Do you really believe that Ask isn't adware. What's your definition of adware then?

Also I see absolutely no mention of Ask upon downloading Frostwire. On the other hand the moment I run the installer Comodo pops up asking about AskInstallChecker-1.5.0.0.exe, I chose to block it and now Frostwire won't install. Rerunning the installer with always blocking the above file worked. I was still asked if I was sure I wanted to continue install without installing the Ask.com Toolbar, which is just idiotic, since it's checked by default.

I also read the agreement in it's entirety and nowhere did it mention forced autoupdate nor your bandwidth being used to distribute anything.

I would say NO!

This will happen to FrostWire as well if RIAA shut them down....

Just don't download the torrent, nobody is forcing you to, you won't be sharing the file if you don't download it first.

You can always turn off the promos in the settings if they bother you so much.

You should lay off the hate-orade, you get a lot more with honey.

Oh, quite the contrary Gubatron. If the BullSh!t wasn't there in the first place, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Stop the Crap, and everyone's happy. Amirite?

If your homepage was reset, probably you didn't uncheck all the 3 checkboxes. Simple.

OpenCandy has been there also for about a year, read the EULA.

"This installer uses the OpenCandy network to recommend other software you may find valuable during the installation of this software."

Again I refer to my previous post and:

what is opencandy - Google Search

Your site says: No Spyware. No Adware. Guaranteed.

hmm, 'and' what do we call the 'hidden' Netshare & auto-updates, how close is that to spyware and secret manipulation of the person's program & bandwidth.

Looking inside the FW program, how much does it link to hidden remote links. :D Resembles something I've seen before with another similar program that could be partly remotely controlled.

The FW barbed-wire 'nazi'-like icon say anything. Is that registered too? lol :D (edit: seems a previous post in another thread vanished.)

If the FW bootstrap server(s) went down, how good would FW be for connecting?

Sleepless' posts speak for themselves for adware so no need for me to add to it. Except the obvious false claims on the FW website. And lack of warnings to users they are actually by default installing a whole bundled package of stuff (adware), not just a simple p2p sharing program. Ask toolbar is adware & to claim FW 100% has no adware is being dishonest when it is being installed by default.

Welcome to Ask Toolbar, we are offering extras in a whole bundled package when you install such as Candy & FrostWire. lol :D

Isn't that also using others bandwidth without them necessarily knowing? Manipulation of their bandwidth.

(I know Vuse/Azureus used to do this, but they are a torrent only program. I think in recent times they may have stopped sharing updates via torrents.)

The difference there is that Vuze doesn't in any way claim to not be doing the things it does. Also there are a million guides on the net about how to make it classic i.e. the old Azureus.

In Vuze it is not only possible to turn of automatic updates, but even selective automatic updates. And not only that, but álso what, when, how.

Unlike FrostWire the owners of Azureus/Vuze actually listen to what the end user wants.

Of course this is because of Private BitTorrent, where one wrong move will blacklist any client. This is something FrostWire devs never seemed to grasp. If you don't follow protocol, **** off!

gubatron i uncheck all 3 checkboxes...And still changed my homepage to Ask with out asking me to do so....I know the Open Candy is mention in the EULA and it still just crapp anyway! And i know the FW claims it is open source, and open source stands for freedom...And where is the freedom for the user lol, when you want them to install things FW not mention anything about....I only know one thing GREED does not pay off in long term!

No, it's deceitful!
It's just about impossible to avoid clicking inside the area where that poster is and as soon as one clicks in it, it starts to download.
It's a deceitful tactic and that's why you were called a scumbag.
If you're not trying to trick people into doing something then you wouldn't need to resort to such tactics.
In addition, a few more complaints.
You keep adding marketing and advertising garbage into FW instead of working on basic features and improving the basic functionality.
Why is there still no "Exit" menu item? One has to close, then right click in the tiny system tray and then finally click exit. Very annoying.
How about having a customizable toolbar like any proper app should have?
But no, instead you keep piling on the advertising ****.

You're a Edited by Sleepless: Not entirely truthful person, Gubatron.
The hidden .networkshare folder hides your frostclick torrents that you're transferring using the user's bandwidth without permission.
And no it's not obvious that on click it will start transferring the torrent.
I was even baffled by the poster. Where did it come from? I did not ask for it. I did not give FW the permission to go and retrieve a poster from a remote server.

You've distributed several million so called legal downloads because you've stolen the bandwidth from users without their knowledge.
By forcing Frostlick onto users in this deceitful way, you've insured that it's dead before it even became known to users.

Your FW forums are pretty dead, obviously you sensor post and the forums reflect that - useless.

And with the automatic updates, I will never download FW from your site again and will never recommend it to anybody again either.
At most I'll get a "fixed" version from here and will be looking for an alternative app.

When you download a torrent, the system makes copies of it.
One inside the azureus folder in a form the system needs it, then there's another copy on FrostWire/Torrents for the user to find it easily, and then there's that copy of the same file .torrent on .networkshare, which is legacy code from LimeWire. I wonder why you don't complain of the visible copy of the same EXACT .torrent file on the other two. Clearly you are a pathetic reviewer.

There's no bandwidth stolen from anyone, nobody is lying here, the code is there for you to see. There's no automated torrent downloads of any kind. If you click on the promotional banner of the torrent you start the download, and if you start downloading a torrent you're obviously a part of the seeding network (if you give, you shall receive, but I guess you're too cheap to share, wonder what the hell you're doing in this forum), no bandwidth being stolen from anyone.
If you started downloading the torrent by mistake you can cancel the download right away, since you haven't downloaded the whole file there's no bandwidth to be taken from you since you don't have any pieces.

Here's a project that's trying to legitimize file sharing so your rights to share files online exist and here's this moron talking crap about it.

If you don't like it so much, by all means go ahead and uninstall it, and while you're at it make your own network and bust your *** for 5 years to make it grow. Competition is healthy.

Stop making pathetic accusations of something which you obviously have not a clue.

Just for the record, this forum is in no way affiliated with FrostWire. Your post was caught by our anti spam system because of some words/phrases. And it will be allowed.

The only things censored here is spam and posts/issues/user names etc. which directly or indirectly break the general etiquette rules of this forum.

The official Frostwire Forums are at http://forum.frostwire.com/ Whether your posts would be as uncensored there, I have no idea.

Sorry, I was referring to the frostwire.com forums not the forums here.
The forums on frostwire.com are pretty dead, few posts and long apart.
I was expecting a lot more posts there and was surprised how few are there.

Our forums probably can't compare to gnutellaforums, since it's only about one software.

Our forum moderators don't censor anyone, they just quarantine spammers.

Oh, and also we don't have as many trolls as I see here, it's depressing coming to this place, may you enjoy your hateful conversations. Probably 1/2 of the threads here are insults and false accusations.

Now go and do something a little more productive than insulting open source developers.

I don't care how you spin it.
I just know that I had hard time getting rid off that torrent that started downloading.
I stopped it, I deleted it, and it kept coming back, like a virus.
It would not stop until I finally exited FW and deleted that torrent form the .networkshare folder.
What's the deal with FW creating folders all over the place anyway?!
I don't remember that behavior in previous versions.
Now it creates folders all on it's own without permission.
And how do you delete those hidden torrents from within FW? You can't. You have to use outside file manager which most users will not know to use and get to those hidden folders. So there will be a lot of "torrent history" left behind.
FW is a huge mess right now, and you're going after advertising money instead of working on the basics.

shapeshifter910 if you need a clean FW 4.21.1 take a look here in this post: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/frostw...frostwire.html

Well I started installing Frostwire 4.21.3 tonight only to find Windows Defender stopped the install due to 'Adware:Win32/OpenCandy'.

This means one thing to me: Frostwire IS NOT adware free (weather optional or not)

This means the slogan on the website (No Spyware. No Adware. Guaranteed) - Is a pure and simple lie.

So thanks to this forum (and to File_Girl71 for the REAL adware free version)

-Danny

And it's funny the FrostWire devs rarely come to this forum any more, perhaps scared of public scrutiny. They stay at the 'everyone luvs FrostWire' forum where all they get are pets on the back. lol :D

After all, the Gnutella Forums was always about scrutiny from other gnutella users, testers & developers. That's how it was the moment I joined here. ie: all gnutella programs are under the spotlight here. :D

Shows a total lack of understanding of end-users. shapeshifter910 is a very typical end-user. It seems if an end-user speaks up, the FW devs see it as spam/trolling/insulting. I've seen that previously with different non p2p software with super-arrogant developers (The forum was full of their arrogance & disregard of the users of the software.) The FW manipulation of users was caught out & you know it. Caught short on words to excuse the FW team so you turn to not only dispelling such users who can see with more than half an eye open, but categorising them rather insultingly when the issue was the program itself & the sneaky dev's project to gain money via these add-ons which have nothing whatsoever to do with the gnutella network, other than making money out of the users indirectly.

Be more up-front! Let people know you are making money out of these additions rather than installing them sneakily. Let people know their bandwidth might be used to assist with updates for other persons. Let them know about these things. They are NOT trolls. They are the typical FW users. They simply want answers, AND if they disapprove then to be able to disable such options easily before installation. Any such 3rd party installation should be optional, not by default. This should be plainly explained on the FW site, not only on the installer. Otherwise you give the impression of sneaky cheating of the users faith in the software.

If you find the wording of the above paragraph too strong & it upsets you, then hand it to another FW dev. Think, think, think how to deal with it. Think how to make the FW users happy. And that's not by trying to sneak junkware past their noses.