For Incredimail users
The following is an extract from a very useful computer newsletter I receive (InfoAve by www.thundercloud.net),
I include it as written, with no comments of my own, I leave you to judge for yourself:
A Question from Anne Additionally,
the Emoticons, (advertising banner) at the bottom of the Incredimail email are
not visible to the person composing the letter, they're only visible to the
recipient. This is done purposely by Incredimail. We think that's wrong. If I'm
sending a letter to someone I want to know exactly what I'm sending them, don't
you? The person sending you the email has no idea he or she is sending an
advertisement. But, more than an advertisement, this image or images are used
as Web beacons (to see a definition of a Web beacon please click
here). Incredimail
has branched out into other questionable products such as Incredibar,
Incredidate, and Incredigames. They attempt to push Incredimail users into
installing these other programs/services all of which come at a cost: Either in
the form of adware, (some sites call them spyware), or subscription services.
There seems to be no end to their aggressive and intrusive technologies. And,
they offer no discernable tech support as evidenced by countless web references
to this by its users. We
recently installed Incredimail on a test computer using today's 'Freeware
Program of The Week - Total Uninstall". We tracked the changes Incredimail
made to our test system. The results were "Incredible" indeed. Over
15,000 lines of changes were made to our test system and it's registry (we have
the test results stored in a text file). We then used Total Uninstall to remove
every single change it made and removed Incredimail from our test computer. We
then installed Mozilla's Thunderbird to compare the changes it made with the
changes Incredimail made. Thunderbird made only 300 lines of changes. Keep in
mind that Thunderbird and Incredimail are both email clients. Any program which
makes that many changes is bound to have some negative impact on the computer's
operation. It is no wonder that many references on the Web refer to
Incredimail's instability and unwanted changes to various normal Windows
configurations. For example, read
these comments and these as well. To
summarize: Incredimail's 20 page Terms of Service and EULA contradict the
summary of Incredimail displayed on its home page . Emails sent with the free
version contain Web beacons. The free version contains adware and according to
the information on the pages above, potentially, spyware. Its EULA is
contradicted by its Terms Of Service. Yet, you agree to both, simply by
installing the program. Incredimail makes over 15,000 lines of changes to your
Windows system and your registry when you install it. When uninstalled, the
usual way (i.e. without using a program like "TotalUninstall")
hundreds of the changes Incredimail made are not reversed and fragments of the
program lie cluttering up your system forever unless manually removed. Once you
install Incredimail you may be leaving your system open for installation of
other Incredimail (et.al) products. |