Unlocker 1.8.7 Infected with Trojan Adware
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With a great deal of disappointment I have to make this post. I have been a avid user of this tool in the past (I’m still running a pretty old version of this on a XP box) since it expedited deleting of files that were locked by an application. It would clearly identify whom locked the file and give me the option to delete it. However it appears that it is in fact bundled with ADWARE. This is defined by some AV products as a Trojan, including Microsoft Essentials as TrojanClicker:Win32/Yabector.gen
It should be noted that CNet’s Download.com ‘verifys’ its spyware free, yet obviously either this was a clear ‘miss’ on their part, or they do not classify adware as spyware. This confirms my thinking that anything on Download.com should be considered ‘risky’ software since they either mislead or don’t bother to check the software that’s uploaded or availble from download.com. My thinking is they simply are misleading by ‘verify’ing it contains no spyware. Others have disclosed this over the past year and a bit that this version has been around for download so I think ample time was provided for Cnet to correct this.
The reason this detection occurs isn’t because of the tool itself per-say, rather its due to the EBAY link utility included with it. It’s reasonable that if you really wanted to install this you could simply whitelist the downloaded file, run the installer and ‘deselect’ the ebay addon. But the problem here is quite simply ‘ethics’. This is not fully disclosed and instead of offering it’s own section of the installer, it’s combined as an option during the normal install for this tool. Besides how many people would go to this much trouble?
What the exact purpose of this adware is not clear to me as I could not be bothered to check it out, since I’m not in the habit of installing any kind of malware, but it has been noted by other people that it may download additional files to your machine without your consent. This would seem consistent with typical Trojan behavior. Who is responsible for this software? Is it Ebay Inc.? Is it some marketting/affiliate company? Is it some rogue 3rd party site? Well thats worthy of researching should you truly care, or accidentally installed this on your machine. Thankfully all the tools we use on our machines and on our local network detected this in transit and blocked it from even downloading one byte onto any machine.
It’s a shame that such a useful tool has to resort to using Adware. I personally don’t see the need or use for it, but suffice to say Cedrick Collumb the author of this tool resorted to this method to distribute his software. Needless to say it only works on Windows 2000 and Windows XP, so if you are using Vista or Windows 7 it’s pretty much junk anyways.
So save yourself the headache of adware trojan installs and ‘crap’ that simply doesn’t work on a modern OS, say NO to Unlocker.
P.S. I learned that Exact Audio Copy, a great CD ripping tool ALSO includes the ebay link found in Unlocker, however I did not verify this directly since I do not use the tool but I have recommended it.. Very sad, another tool to remove from my list of recommendations. Since both these tools have been infected for some time, I guess it’s time for me to do a complete tool check again.
Just say NO to Malware in any form, especially adware!
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