dogbreath

It seems to me that you are worried that LW may contain added hidden dangers (software) that can infect a user's PC during installation.

You have found some reports that older versions of LW contained adware, spyware and whatever else and, there seem to be some suggestion, LW could be carrying on that same tradition despite their public announcements that LW contains no adware or spyware.

All I can do to dispel your worries is relate my own experience with LW:

I have been using LW Pro since May/June last year (V4.0.5) to now using V4.8.1, in addition I have always used Ad-Aware (from V6.0 B181 to SE Personal) and Spybot (from V1.2 to 1.3), both loaded with the latest adware/spyware definitions. And I have now added MS Anti-Spyware to this arsenal.

I have never ever found any adware or spyware on my PC after a new installation of LW Pro (13 installations in all), as for viruses, I regularly run Norton Antivirus 2003 (soon to be upgraded to 2005) and that has always come up clean.

Now I will readily admit that using P2P software brings the dangers of internet that much closer to the PC user and, like the article says, you can be hacked, easier to infect with viruses, Trojans and worms. Plus you have to run the gauntlet of downloading mislabeled files containing anything from dialers to various kinds of pornography.

However, if you apply a little common sense and protective software (anti Ad/Spyware/virus, firewall, browser protection, etc) and keep your OS up to date then you will have very little to worry about.

All in all, I believe you are worrying about nothing because LW does not contain any adware, spyware or whatever and most sensible users will have their protective software in place guarding their PCs from unwanted intrusions.

Finally, even if you do not believe me or the folks at LW, that from LW V4.0 there have been no hidden software bundled in, then get yourself a couple of anti-spyware apps and run them. That will tell you if there is anything on your PC that should not be there.





UK Bob