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This product, which seems
to change its name every week or so, is foistware installed with KaZaA,
a popular Napster-like file sharing program. Once installed, it will insert
advertising links in ALL the Web sites you visit, regardless of whether
KaZaA is running. Sadly, it is probably touted to newbies a some kind of
"useful, can't-live-without tool essential for Internet access", and takes
many installer speed-demons* by surprise. More
information is available in this
article. A link inserted by TOPtext may look like a normal link, then
appear highlighted in yellow when the viewer mouses over it.
(Note: KaZaA installs numerous spyware/malware tag-a-longs, including New.net, Onflow, WebHancer, msbb, TOPtext [this page] and Cydoor. Use with extreme caution, or don't use at all! If you must use this software, back up your Registry files (user.dat and system.dat) before installing. Both New.net and WebHancer can mess up your system during their uninstall, leaving you stranded without Internet access.)
Users
If you see new sleazy links
yellow highlights on your favourite web pages that weren't there before,
check for a program called Ezulamain.exe
running in the background.
If you don't want this beastie
on your system (and I don't see why you would), it can be removed by going
to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove, selecting TOPtext (or
whatever it's called this week) from the list, and pressing Remove.
Webmasters
Any TOPtext infectee visiting
your Web site may see yellow links--to possibly seedy merchants--that you
didn't put there. To a novice user they may look like part of your site.
The bad news is, it appears this sort of thing is entirely legal--the
ad-inserting software is no more than a specialized Transform Engine, much
like the Game Genie, Dialectizer,
and many Web page translation tools. The good news is, you can send an
email message to support@ezula.com
requesting that your site be excluded from this yellow-link graffiti fest.
Additionally, I have seen mention that adding the meta-tag that prevents
MS "Smart Tags" will block TOPtext as well:
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">This is unverified, and may or may not work.
* You know, those
people who can't be bothered with reading the License agreement and fine
print, and press the "I agree, install the damn thing already!"
button as soon as it appears. Remember to ALWAYS read all the fine-print
nonsense and be very picky about what is installed, especially if it appears
to have nothing to do with what you actually downloaded! Some of these
"freeware" vendors are getting dodgier by the moment.