Other Money users have not reported this. Perhaps Money wasn't involved in
this?

"Major Malfunction" <MajMalfunky[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eJNGP9A7DHA.712[at]tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I am running Money 2002 on my system at home. It had bee well over a year
since I looked for any updates to the program, so I clicked on the button to
update the program. Imagine my surprise when I started getting pop-up ads
for a tax prep program. A real BIG surprise since I have a pop-up blocker
installed on my system. My third surprise cam when I closed Money: I had new
desktop shortcuts to Netbank, ING Services and some more garbage I did not
ask for. I ran a scan with SpyBot and found BDE Projector (see
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/BDE.html for details) had been installed ALL
WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE!

This is totally unethical. You can't call it illegal, because if you read
virtually any user's agreement you will find a clause allowing "any of our
associates" to install an / or update *their* software when you request an
update of the program you own. Sometimes that also has clause allowing the
vendor to update their software without your knowledge. If you go the above
link for DoxDesk, a partial scan will be done on your system. Post what you
found hidden on your system.

Luckily, I was immediately aware of this issue and was able to deal with it.
How many people are not aware and have their systems crashed by parasites
installed in this fashion? BDE has this potential*.Since you think are
downloading a legitimate update and get these ancillary programs installed
as well, this action has become termed "drive by" installations: you are a
hapless victim who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

*Please note, there is a legitimate program called BDE, so this is
confusing. The good program is Borland Database Engine and is a useful and
essential tool for connecting to certain databases. The bad one comes from a
company known as Brilliant Digital. The script on DoxDesk and the program
SpyBot differentiates between the two and will not interfere with the
legitimate BDE program.