SmileyCentral review

Identification

Product Review–SmileyCentral (Ask Jeeves, Inc.)

Test run July 21, 2005, default settings on clean install of Windows XP Home, OEM edition. Unpatched, no service packs, antivirus, or blocking software. Hardware firewall was the only security in place.

Version tested: No version number, but copyright date in the license is June 1, 2005. Also known as FunWebProducts.

Summary: Claims not to be adware or spyware, and I saw no indications to indicate that this is anything more than some cute buttons and icons, plus lots of settings changes relating to search functions. The apparent revenue model for the free product is that it directs your searches to AskJeeves.com, where they make money on sponsored ads.

Recommendation, Business systems: Remove–serves no business purpose, has no warranty, and may add to network traffic.

Recommendation, Personal systems: Mostly harmless.

LICENSE
=======
Under section 2, License conditions–the program phones home for updates:

“We may require the updating of the Software on your computer when we release a new version of the Software, or when we make new features available. This update may occur automatically or through other means and may occur all at once or over multiple sessions.”

INSTALLATION
============

Added to running files:
C:\Program Files\MyWebSearch\bar\1.bin\MWSOEMON.EXE

System settings changes, according to HijackThis:

R3 – URLSearchHook: (no name) – {00A6FAF6-072E-44cf-8957-5838F569A31D} – C:\Program Files\MyWebSearch\SrchAstt\1.bin\MWSSRCAS.DLL

O2 – BHO: MyWebSearch Search Assistant BHO – {00A6FAF1-072E-44cf-8957-5838F569A31D} – C:\Program Files\MyWebSearch\SrchAstt\1.bin\MWSSRCAS.DLL

O2 – BHO: mwsBar BHO – {07B18EA1-A523-4961-B6BB-170DE4475CCA} – C:\Program Files\MyWebSearch\bar\1.bin\MWSBAR.DLL

O4 – HKLM\..\Run: [MyWebSearch Email Plugin] C:\PROGRA~1\MYWEBS~1\bar\1.bin\mwsoemon.exe

O4 – HKCU\..\Run: [MyWebSearch Email Plugin] C:\PROGRA~1\MYWEBS~1\bar\1.bin\mwsoemon.exe

O4 – Startup: MyWebSearch Email Plugin.lnk = C:\Program Files\MyWebSearch\bar\1.bin\MWSOEMON.EXE

O4 – Global Startup: MyWebSearch Email Plugin.lnk = C:\Program Files\MyWebSearch\bar\1.bin\MWSOEMON.EXE

O8 – Extra context menu item: &Search – http://bar.mywebsearch.com/menusearch.html?p=ZNxdm824YYUS

O16 – DPF: {1D4DB7D2-6EC9-47A3-BD87-1E41684E07BB} – http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/nocache/funwebproducts/ei-2/SmileyCentralFWBInitialSetup1.0.0.8-2.cab

UNINSTALL
=========

Listed in Add/Remove programs as “My Web Search (SmileyCentral). Uninstall requires reboot.

These settings were left behind:

O16 – DPF: {1D4DB7D2-6EC9-47A3-BD87-1E41684E07BB} – http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/nocache/funwebproducts/ei-2/SmileyCentralFWBInitialSetup1.0.0.8-2.cab

Left behind read-only folder C:\Program Files\FunWebProducts, containing 2 files, 3 folders. The custom icon selected as a cursor was also left behind.

No shortcuts were left behind.

REINSTALL TEST
==============

No problems. Worked same as the first install. The second uninstall failed at reboot, with a ‘RUNDLL’ error box: “Error loading C:\PROGRA~1\UNINST~1.DLL. The specified module could not be found.” Message did not appear on subsequent reboot.

POST-MORTEM
===========

Surprise, surprise. There are so many ads for this product that I just expected the worst. But it’s clearly not that. Definitely a lightweight, and some home users may enjoy it.

From the mailbox: Cleaned by a pro–Ripoff?

Field Reports

I had what was apparently a pretty bad infestation of spyware crud on my Win XP box. Aurora, Limewire, some other stuff. I couldn’t clean it out myself, gave up, and got a referral on a local tech guru.

He showed up, took one look, and said he had to take the system to the shop or I wouldn’t like the bill. I let him, and he brought it back clean two days later, with a bill for $180. Seems clean, and he added some blocking on installs, and updated my patches.

Was this pretty typical? I lost days here. Bill wasn’t bad, considering.
_________________
Joe

OK, so I’m still learning all this %$#!!

Typical? Sounds quite reasonable. Could have been much more expensive. You lost days, but saved money, because the tech didn’t attempt to clean the system in your office. If he had, he would have run a series of cleanup programs, some taking 15+ minutes to run while he attempted to look like he was doing something. For some items in the autoplays, he would have needed access to another computer to do searches for identification and for more specific removal tools that take out single programs–Aurora is one of those, that the general-purpose tools don’t take out.

Overall, it’s much easier to do this back at the shop, with reference materials handy, another PC for patch downloads, a high-speed internet connection for patch updates, and most important, the ability to walk away while the scans run, because you really do have to run multiple tools to clean up the mess. Onsite, you probably would have had to feed him lunch. Maybe dinner. Rented a room. Offsite, he could keep working on other projects, and not bill by the hour while he did other things.

You have been Updated

Identification

Yup, that’s what’s on screen this morning. I’ve been Updated, and there is this always-on-top message asking me to click on “Update”. Somehow or another, Viewpoint Media Player slipped past a fully-patched Win 2000 Pro setup with blocking in place on the autoplay settings. The product claims to send non-personally-identifiable information back to a server in order to run a toolbar, and online research claims that it hijacks search results. There’s no toolbar here, so I’ll guess I saw the very first message. AdAware and SpybotSD don’t identify it as a threat.

It doesn’t play fair. I can highlight the license agreement, but it won’t let me copy it. Same on a ‘Who is viewpoint?’ entry. Well, I did capture the main window as a jpg. As adware goes (if that’s all it is), it’s pretty tame. I had no trouble removing it by killing the process viewmgr.exe, running the Viewpoint uninstall, and cleaning out two related files from the temporary files folder. I’m curious how it got past my blocks.