Warning To All Kazaa Users

[Cheshire Cat]

Hey guys, a lot of you may have noticed that I pretty much vanished from the net for a long time (since before christmas) I had to get my comp fixed. But get this; I took my comp to get checked out, it had a whole ton of different virus's and glitches. And guess what, every single problem on my comp was traced back to Kazaa! In fact, the guys I brought it too who have only been in business for a few months said that a good 80% of the problems they fixed on peoples computers were Kazaa-related! AND WHATEVER YOU DO, NEVER LEAVE IT ON OVERNIGHT TO DOWNLOAD LARGE STUFF!!!! Thats when they get you! So just download CAREFULLY! Okay laters...

 

[Stitch62679]

I was asked to install it on someone's computer and it did seem like a spyware intensive program, that's for the warning!

 

[Pluma]

Troubling news.

Where you using kazaa lite or the standard kazaa filled with spyware?
Was it sb taking advantage of security weaknesses inherent to the software?
I mostly download media and pdfs which do not spread infection, but if kazaa itself is the problem…

 

[dskodj]

Kazza is a bunch of crapola. I use winmx which is very simmaler to the old napster. Anything that is swamped with pop up ads and has forced downloads is a fraud and scam which is all Kazza is. Dont know for tickling clips what winmx is like but I use the program for music and its the best in exsistance anymore. I have found tickle clips though on there but they are hard to get.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Re: Troubling news.

I dont know the details of why or how Kazza caused the problem other than it had to do with both downloaded material that was infected and faulty spyware programming (doesnt work 100% of the time)

Where you using kazaa lite or the standard kazaa filled with spyware?
Was it sb taking advantage of security weaknesses inherent to the software?
I mostly download media and pdfs which do not spread infection, but if kazaa itself is the problem…

 

[XjuggaloX]

Use KazzaLite... its spyware free and ive been using it a long time and ive never had a problem... u can get it from www.kazaalite.com
Or if you want to look for K++, its another version of kazaalite that i use and its got cool programs like autosearch and speed up... Autosearch is a program that automaticaly searches for more, like when u click on the search more button, well it does it over and over again so whatever your searching for u'll find a lot more...( like clips maybe 🙂 ) when i use it i find probably over 500 clips.... and the speed up program automaticly searches for more sources so it will always download at top speed... with these 2 little programs downloading from kazaalite is flawless and fast... try it u'll see!

 

[XjuggaloX]

Oh and i forgot to explain for u curious people out there who wanna know what the difference between Kazaa and Kazzalite... Kazaalite is Kazaa but some people took the program and stripped it down to the basics so u won't get all those damn pop ups and spy ware... sorry for not noting this in my previous post.

 

[nerdness]

www.k-lite.tk

best site to get kazaa lite.

 

[Jsenteris]

Thanks for the warrning, I download from KaZaa a lot.

 

[BOFH666]

Just to pick up on a couple of things from the original post:

1) If you're using any file downloading tool where you're not 100% sure the site you're downloading from is trustworthy, you need to invest in anti-virus software. And don't just install it and forget about it, make sure it's kept up to date and check any file you download before running it. This goes for everything you get off the web, even stuff from such (cough) secure and trustworthy (cough) companies as Microsoft has been known to be infected. They don't cost much (if anything) to buy and most actually work these days 😉

2) I'm a little confused by the "Don't leave it on overnight...That's when they get you" part of your post. The only thing I can think of for this is that the longer your machine is hooked up to the net the greater the chance of some Script Kiddiot out there trying to attack your box. Again, this isn't just a Kazza problem, and doesn't actually need you to be on the net for long periods of time. I've been attacked about two minutes after booting my PC before now. As with virus attacks, get yourself some protection in the form of firewall software. Again these days there's a load of cheap or free programs out there that'll do the job and it's worth the time and effort to get set-up and to maintain the software.

Other than that, I'll go with everything said about KazzaLite et al, although I must admit I'm still using the regular Kazza client as I ain't got round to switching yet and I've had no problems whatsoever for the last, ummm, year and a half.

Now if you'll excuse me I've got to go un-flood my kitchen (massa frassa rassa cheap plumbers).

 

[TKDANNY]

thanx for the heads up
i have just downloaded the kazaa thing and it said it had and error and went off, so i guess i cant download anything off kazaa

 

[schwarzmond]

Get yourself Zone Alarm and close any open unneeded ports. Anyways I'd rather avoid using file sharing applications like Kazaa (Lite), as more and more providers start to track this stuff.

 

[The_Laugher]

I tired Kazza, both the regular and lite and I didn't get any virus', but it did install a buch of spyware and in both programs cases, messed up the operation of my computer. So much so that it became almost unusable until I removed kazza.

The Laugher 🙂

 

[trent]

Dunno if "Spyware" and "parasites" mean the same thing, but this is a good site to check your computer for parasites:

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/

 

[Paper#Boy]

Here's some good links

If your worried you've got spyware already from programs like Kazaa this program called Ad-aware will find and remove them ...

Ad-aware

This site is a good guide to p2p & newsgroups with good info ...

Slyck.com

hope you all find these useful 🙂

btw - i can't believe some of u still have no firewall;
(no firewall) = (open computer) any one with the software can pick your computer out and use it for whatever

 

[Phineas]

I believe I can clarify the "don't leave it on overnight" part. at least, I can for US folks.

nighttime in the USA is daytime on the other side of the world. places like China, Korea, Taiwan, Russia, Germany, et cetera. There are LOADS of hackers in European and Asian countries just dying to get their mitts into unguarded American computers. 3/4 of the penetration attempts on my PC take place between 3 and 5 AM and are almost always from Asia. the one time I was hacked at work, it was from Korea.

so, there ya go.

and yea, if you're grabbing files from some random computer, you're just asking for a virus. I wouldn't touch a P2P system with a ten foot pole, thank you.

 

[XjuggaloX]

Paper#Boy had a good point... Ive used KazzaLite for years and ive never had a problem... Maybe its because i am running behind a firewall... I have never had a problem using kazaa or any file sharing program for that matter... I just think most people are careless and don't know how to protect against things like this... Use KazzaLite, I promise you won't have a problem ( unless you are one who is clueless on how to protect from a virus, or spyware )

 

[TKpervert]

spyware

is nothing more than a snoopy cookie.
I run behind a firewall (Zone Alarm) and still manage to collect 30 snoopy cookies a week (so says Ad-Ware as he snuffs them).
You can set Windows security to keep out snoopy cookies, but then you're driven nuts every time some website tries to plant a cookie in your system. Not all cookies are bad. Even spyware cookies normally are not dangerous to your system.
Now viruses are a different animal ...

 

[tarrant11]

precautions

I leave KazaaLite on most of the time, both for big downloads and to share, but I take 3 basic steps to help preserve privacy and security: antivirus, cookie manager, firewall.

Anyone on the net at all should have updated antivirus protection; it's a necessity now.

Some browsers can delete cookies on exit, but I like the control of a program like CookieCop that lets me pick and choose which cookies to block. Privacy has to be balanced with convenience and functionality.

If you have a permanent net connection (cable, DSL, etc.), you should have a firewall. A hardware firewall is preferable since it hides (via NAT) the true IP of your computer, but ZoneAlarm is a good freeware firewall program.

At the very least turn off the host services in your operating system. If you want to be a server, get a hardware firewall and do your homework; otherwise you're just a DoS zombie waiting to happen.