ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

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Xander
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ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Xander »

Image

This will keep UVKportable.exe alive during its kill-all-processes stage.
Brink
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Brink »

Nice. Thanks.
wrc559
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by wrc559 »

Awesome new,
Any chance we can get whitelisting of Remote Desktop software like TeamView, Zoho Assist, etc? This support staff able to assist ?
Xander
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Xander »

Fred
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Fred »

Xander, I just noticed you asked to whitelist "uvkportable.exe", but UVK's executable is UVK_en.exe. Let's hope Explode knows this. Otherwise, I don't think it will make any difference.
One thing we humans have in common is that we are all different. So, if you think you're weird because you're different from everyone else, then we are all weird.

Fred
Charger440
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Charger440 »

Yea I was kinda wondering about that too Fred.
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
Xander
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Xander »

Fred wrote:Xander, I just noticed you asked to whitelist "uvkportable.exe", but UVK's executable is UVK_en.exe. Let's hope Explode knows this. Otherwise, I don't think it will make any difference.
Not really sure he's in a good place to be doing UVK any favours.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/ ... try3683937
I'm Xplode, developer of AdwCleaner.
It appears that "Ultra Adware Killer" should be called "Ultra Stealing Tool". Fred_UVK stole the database of Junkware Removal Tool, as Thisisu said, but also the database of AdwCleaner.
Same with the JRT author
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/ ... try3681643

I'd have had no idea if ADW's team hadn't sent me this link.


Fred, is it safe to assume that all this has been ironed out? The guy replying in the last link seems to be part of the ADW team and ADWcleaner is still part of the built-in tools...?
Charger440
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Charger440 »

Because it is Fred I will assume this is not true. I hope. I can't see Fred stealing some ones stuff.

That being said, This is not the first time I have seen reports from ADWCleaner claim people have stolen their stuff.

I'm guessing since you posted this we can expect Fred's side of this story.

Xander if you happen to see anything from d7 using this to his advantage, let me know because I have seen where he gets his ideas from. Matter of fact I was banned from his favorite forum because I called him out on it and all his little buddies got mad at me....
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
Charger440
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Charger440 »

Hello Thisisu.



I'm not sure how this could be considered a theft, since JRT uses plain text files in its database, and no copyright is included in those files.



Also since JRT uses batch files, anyone with a minimal knowledge of cmd batch scripting could make a similar application based on the code of those batch files and the database text files.



The UAK's database is not encrypted. It is a registry hive which is loaded in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER root key by the application before starting the scan and unloaded immediately afterwards. I'm somewhat surprised you didn't figure that out by yourself.



Since anyone can easily load the hive with the reg load command, I also have no way of preventing others from stealing my database. And actually I don't care, as long as it is used for the same purpose: helping users to get rid of adware. As I said before, we're on the same side, so we should help each other.



As I also said before, I needed to create an adware removal application that removes adware for all users, because I'm also an IT professional, and that would save me lots of time.



So I did. I had to start somewhere. I had some logs from JRT, adwcleaner and other programs, but I knew that wasn't enough. So I made a small program that copies the entries from the JRT's text files to my database. Don't know how that could considered illegal, since they are just plain text files, with no encryption or copyright. They were in my computer, and I acquired them by perfectly legal means.



My database also contains lots of stuff I added myself, form manual detection, which took me long time.



I'm not trying to make money out of your efforts because my application is free.



Since you're so eager about it I will stop reading the text files from your database. I will also remove JRT frm the UVK's default third party apps in the next update, planned for the end of the month.

Here is Fred's explanation about this issue. I have to say I am on Freds side on this one. The owner of JRT might be upset but when it comes right down to it UAK is free and all junkware tools should have very similar information if they work. After all, I mean how many different ways can you look for "Yahoo tool bar" just so you don't "Copy" someone else. To be honest with you, I never really liked JRT anyway and almost considered it junk ironically. My thoughts on JRT had nothing to do with this as I just found out about this.
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
Fred
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Fred »

When I created UAK, I copied the definitions from AdwCeaner and JRT. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed either. I only did it because I thought they wouldn't mind, and I needed something to start with. Both applications extract their definitions to the temp folder and they are pretty readable for everyone.

If you want to know my opinion, I still think they wouldn't mind. JRT's batch files even had comments explaining how it worked and how to use the definition files. AdwCleaner's definitions were an sqlite3 database not encrypted nor password protected. I mean, who creates those things and then complains someone steals their stuff?

I think what really made them mad is that I built something better than what they did, in just a couple of weeks. They had bot worked in their tools for several years. I guess they just couldn't stand it, so they tried to bury me.

Regardless, I removed their definitions ASAP. I don't like trouble. Thisisu asked me to remove JRT from UVK, and I did, even if I didn't have to. What UVK does is mostly what any browser does: download and run the tool upon user request. That they can't forbid me to do. Explode didn't ask me to remove AdwCleaner.

As for Ultra Adware Killer, I totally rebuilt it in one week. It uses its own definitions since version 2.0. I made it use a totally different approach, which is how I should have done from the beginning. In fact, their complaints were actually good, because I don't like the way they work. AdwCleaner lists the items found randomly, which makes impossible to uncheck all items related to a specific program we don't want to remove. JRT doesn't even allow you to "not delete" something, which is even worse. Ultra Adware Killer allows to white list whatever we want and it has a much better interface.

So, in sumary, I'm actually proud of being able to do something better than they are, and much faster, and I don't need their definitions for anything.
One thing we humans have in common is that we are all different. So, if you think you're weird because you're different from everyone else, then we are all weird.

Fred
Charger440
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Charger440 »

For what it's worth Fred, reading what was said about you and you explaining how you did it. I don't hold it against you and if you totally rewrote UAK in version 2 their comments are actually moot anyway as now UAK is completely your work.
Jim

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Fred
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Fred »

Thanks Jim. I don't expect everyone to understand, or to be on my side. I knew some day this would come up, and I'm not hiding anything.
One thing we humans have in common is that we are all different. So, if you think you're weird because you're different from everyone else, then we are all weird.

Fred
FredJClaus
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by FredJClaus »

I know nothing about programming so please excuse this stupid question. So what if Fred borrowed the definitions to start with. Had he written his own database from scratch wouldn't they look alike anyway? Isn't there only one way to define a file, and remove it? It's like two people getting 100% on a test. In order for that to happen, they should have the exact same answers.
wmmiller
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by wmmiller »

I don’t know Fred face to face. However, I think I know him well enough from my interactions with him and I don’t believe that he would “steal” someone’s work. As Fred said that stuff is out there for anyone to see. If he was “stealing” it, he for sure would be smart enough to figure out how to hide it. I don’t know anything about coding, but as already said, there must be only so many ways to search for and delete certain things. Since UAK has been rewritten I would also agree the point is moot. Heck, those guys are likely dissecting UAK to see how it works. Rock on Fred and keeping going forward. :)

Bill
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Charger440
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Charger440 »

To be honest, this actually just makes me have less respect for JRT (which I never really liked anyway) and ADWCleaner (which I didn't use that often but did use). I have not seen any where that Fred denies doing it and I take his word for it that the info was readily available and not copyrighted. If he does not deny doing it, why would he lie about the rest?

As for the defs, there are only so many ways you can look for a file containing "Yahoo bar Inc" in its source code. I would imagine if one cared enough to go digging through all the adware defs out there, you would find they are pretty similar.

Fred made a better tool and I think it's pretty cool. As Fred said, they are just jealous. :lol:
Jim

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Xander
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Xander »

I brought this up not to rehash the accusations but to ask if there was still bad blood between the authors. ADW is a great tool and for authors to not be able to cooperate is an obstacle to getting the softwares to work together on our end.
Charger440
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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Charger440 »

I ran UAK which found several things and then ran ADWCleaner and it found nothing.... Interesting.
Jim

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Re: ADWcleaner will whitelist UVKportable

Post by Fred »

Xander wrote:I brought this up not to rehash the accusations but to ask if there was still bad blood between the authors. ADW is a great tool and for authors to not be able to cooperate is an obstacle to getting the softwares to work together on our end.
I don't think AdwCleaner killing the UVK's process is that bad. Because it will reboot the PC anyway, it's actually a good thing, as it prevents UVK from moving to the next fix/app before the PC shuts down.
One thing we humans have in common is that we are all different. So, if you think you're weird because you're different from everyone else, then we are all weird.

Fred
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