AIM+ Phonehome!

[Guest]

This program is awesome in quite a few ways, but I've noticed that it keeps a connection to 63.242.135.29 which resolves to JIMBO and big-o-software.com. Are you guys keeping all logs of aim chats? Are you stealing screennames + passwords? I recommend everyone to STOP using this program until the author comes clean.

[Big-O Ryan]

AIM+ loads two web pages (from www.big-o-software.com, webserver name is JIMBO, name resolves to IP 63.242.134.29) when it starts up (actually, the first time the 'sign on' window appears).

The first web page simply returns the current version of AIM+, so the software can check to see if there is a new version (and if there is, it can pop up a box telling you, like most other programs do, including AIM and WinAmp). AIM+ doesn't even send your current version# here, it simply checks the version of itself against the current version #. Also, with the current version of AIM+, you won't be seeing any 'There's a new version!' boxes, however - I didn't quite finish that feature to my satisfaction.

The second web page is simply my counter script. It's just for 'usage statistics', as they say - I want to know if anybody is still using AIM+. (just like WinAmp or AIM does, just like most internet-enabled programs nowadays).

As for 'keeping a connection' to big-o-software.com - if this were the case I'm afraid my little webserver would be brought to it knees quite quickly - and I can assure you that it is a simple web page call that ends almost as quickly as it starts, even on a modem.

As for 'stealing passwords', 'logging all your chats' -- well, sure, I could, as could any program you've got running on your machine. I guess the real question here is, why I would care to have that information? But, maybe you're more clever than me, and could find a use for it - so, please, monitor the traffic between AIM+ and big-o-software.com. It is 2 simple web page calls, nothing encrypted or fancy, so it should be quite clear what is going on, and you won't find any surprises..

If you're really uncomfortable with this, by all means, stop using AIM+ immediately - but you should probably also reconsider most of the other software on your computer (including AIM, since AIM does all this as well).

If you really want to use AIM+ without this features - just ask (here, in this topic, preferably). If enough people want it, you could disable it with a registry key.

However, I hope you find these features beneficial and understand why I wrote them into AIM+. The next version of AIM+ will be great, don't you want to know about it? :) And, letting me know that people are using AIM+ is probably the only way to be assured that there WILL be a new version. :)

-Ryan
Big-O Software

[Dan]

If you guys are really that paranoid about it checking for a new version (I'm not, I like it), open notepad, copy and paste the following:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Big-O\AIM+]
"CheckVersion"=dword:00000000

then save it as checkversion.reg (not .txt) and then open it, it will ask you if you are sure you want to add the info to registry, click yes. Poof, check version is gone

[Guest]

Would the author of this program, which I do enjoy be willing to insert a toggle to be able to turn off the update checker. Just like WinAmp has done.

Thanks

[JediXAngel]

Alright! I started a thread on this today, but just making sure, that's all

I FULLY trust you, man!!!

BTW, Congrats on the Microsoft thing

[Big-O Ryan]

By the way, the earlier posts requesting an option to control version checking were regarding AIM+ 1.0. I'm sure that by now most people have probably noticed that AIM+ 2.0 [and newer] have options in AIM+ Preferences to tailor the upgrade monitor to your liking .

[Guest]

Download this tool to check if you have spyware, or more to the point, prove AIM+ isn't spyware.

You can download by clicking "From Author" here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/article.php?sid=506