Dec 16 2005
How trustable is Softpedia’s malware certification?
I see an increasing number of programs claiming to be clean (no spyware, no adware, no viruses) as tested by Softpedia (see YamiPod’s report for example).
Being used to Debian, where everything is open-source and peer-reviewed, adware, spyware and viruses is a concern I never had. I guess that now that I’m using a Mac where quite a few programs are not open-source, this is something I need to watch for.
So I am wondering who Softpedia is. They have a nice and frequently updated Web site, 2.5M+ search results in Google, and a ton of programs in their repository, so they look like an entity that may be trustable. But I haven’t found a traditional “About this site” link. Wikipedia has some information about it but not that much.
It’s not clear how they test the programs either. I am no expert in malware being a Linux user and very new to the Mac (I’m not even sure about the amount of malware existing for the Mac), but it seems it me that without the source code — well, sometimes even with the source code it has to be tricky when you have a big program: I doubt that the complete source code of OpenOffice.org was reviewed but its Debian package maintainer — it is easy to figure out how clean a program is.
So I for one cannot tell how much I should really trust this certification, so I would assume that other users would have the same problem.
I think that the initiative is laudable, but they should be very explicit about exposing the factors in order for people to decide how much to trust such certification.
February 4th, 2006 at 15:42
This is the right question Hugo. All I can find out is that they are based in Bucharest Romania and that they have a mirror in Florida.
Another group that also is more difficult to pin down is majorgeeks.com
This article on antispyware really tells it all:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124508,00.asp
Lesson: dont download from any source until you know exactly who they are, where they are based and that they offer some form of trust.
May 17th, 2006 at 17:22
Very “trustable”… Check these links first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Softpedia&oldid=46433482
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/softpedia.com/summary
http://www.klitetools.com/comments.php?shownews=2475&catid=69
Quote from last article:
“Softpedia loves to copy and paste! Also, sites like Fileforum, Major Geeks, Neowin, and SnapFiles.com are daily ripped off by Softpedia. You really don’t care what you post, right? Dear visitors, pay attention which sites you browse in the future, a nice banner with ”100% spyware free” doesn’t mean that is really free.”
July 29th, 2006 at 18:57
I’m a net admin, and always have an eye on processes in my system. I haven’t had popups since the 90’s but today, when looking for drivers on softpedia - my first use of this site - i had intelliton popups every few seconds, even while browsing away from softpedia.
SOFTPEDIA INSTALLS MALWARE
the process is called TGbike or something similar with TGBstarter.exe and an accompanying config file. Hijack this didnt fix it but now im about 15 minutes from the end of my spybot scan and it seems to have caught it.
AVOID SOFTPEDIA.COM AT ALL COSTS
Besides the fact that i didnt find my driver, this site could potentially give you some serious headaches especially if you dont know how to fix the problems yourself. I’d hate to think what happens when you actually download one of their programs.
August 1st, 2006 at 20:38
I don’t think that this has anything to do with SoftPedia. It looks like TheGreenBow:
http://www.thegreenbow.com/vpn_faq.html#VPN17
May 7th, 2007 at 10:58
[...] un blog cu ceva vreme in urma despre cata incredere poti sa ai in certificarea Softpediei. M-am tot uitat [...]
April 9th, 2008 at 8:47
I can sadly say that i have the same experience as “gruve” on this one.
My only problem so far with mal-ware/spy-ware has come through softpedia. My feeling is that the site itself is an attempt to infect peoples hardware for one or the other reason, propably for money for or information (the mal-ware was not connected to any third party download).
The feeling is that the question should not be: “can we trust softpedias malware certification?” but rather “can we trust softpedia as a site?”
Please see that the above is my personal feeling based on experiences with the site, it might not reflect the acctual state of affairs, but nowadays when I see softpedia i stay long away from it.
May 7th, 2008 at 17:19
I was stupid enough to download from Softpedia a prog called fast browser. Somehow it wiped stuff off my desktop on my other computer and I now cannot restore to an earlier date. I trusted their promise of clean software. I have learned a lesson hard.
Laz.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:18
I was going to use Softpedia for downloading iso images of software to burn; but when I found out that it definitely installs spyware I have decided to forgo anything with softpedia. My second question is what about sourceforge? Is sourceforge a trustworthy site or does that also download spyware? Are there ANY trustworthy free linux software sites out there that do not download spyware onto your computer?
November 19th, 2008 at 7:29
hello,
well guys, i have to say that i am using softpedia.com for more than 2 years now and NOT ever i had any problems with it ( and i always have antivirus+firewall intalled on my computer), and i have installed a TON of thing from them.
Mike