Morpheus oddity

[K. Brown]

Why is it that MSAS marks everything associated with this
program? I mean even all my mp3 files in the sub
download folder off Morpheus are marked. After a scan
1526 files were marked from this program and the "Item
Details" section claims this...
program that may be bundled with adware.<<

Yes the above is true that Morpheus is, or was, bundled
with adware but not all files in the Morpheus program, or
files which I've downloaded. Morpheus use to be bundled
with "My Search Bar" and "Web Savings". I've tested a
number of antispyware programs and they use to find the
bundled programs and registry keys, but made no claim of
the Morpheus program itself like MSAS is doing. As of
Morpheus v4.7, I think, these bundled programs don't seem
present anymore. They use to show up in your add/remove
programs but I can't find them there or in registry
anymore so I belive the bundled crap is gone. MS should
investigate this. Sure users can just set Morpheus to be
ignored in future but initialy seeing this makes me feel
like some homework wasn't done over there.

 

[JohnF.]

If you keep your mp3's in a folder NOT under the morpheus folder, what
happens?

 

[K. Brown]

by default the files are downloaded there and honestly
I'm not interested in relocating them because MSAS isn't
doing this right. For testing purpose perhaps I'd try it
but it's by no means the proper cure. Also I just did
some reseach on the net and found this.
find and download more digital-media files than ever
simply by typing keywords. Morpheus uses next-generation
Neonet technology to deliver more results and faster
downloads for MP3 audio, video, movies, games, software,
pictures, and documents and can find rare content others
cannot.

Morpheus searches the major file-sharing networks and
simultaneously connects with millions of users of
Gnutella, eDonkey, LimeWire, Grokster, G2, Neonet, and
others. Unlike other clients that offer limited
BitTorrent search capability, Morpheus has search results
that show live information from trackers, including
seeder and leecher counts.

Morpheus, ruled legal by U.S. federal courts, protects
your privacy with access to public-proxy networks; works
with your antivirus software; enables simultaneous
searches; previews files while downloading; returns fast,
multisource downloads; provides Bitzi antispoofing
lookups; and contains no spyware. <<

So I was wrong. It was Morpheus v4.8 when the spyware
bundled crap was removed from the install, it's clear on
this end that it does in fact no longer exist...now to
bring MSAS up to par. Current version is now v4.9.

 

[JohnF.]

I would have liked to know if the behavior would be different if you moved
your files -

HOWEVER

It is a good management process to move your files away from their default
download location for purposes of backups and better separation of programs
and data. Your C: drive is very easy to backup and recover if you are not
always fiddling with data files on the C: Drive.

As to whether Microsoft will differentiate Morpheus(bad) from Morpheus(Good)
I couldn't tell you - that's why they let us post stuff here. As to how
long the good version of Morpheus will actually remain good is also to be
seen. I remember inspections in the military - look good long enough to get
the pass from the Commanding Officer, after that who knows.

It's just a beta for now.

 

[K. Brown]

OK I ran a test per your request. It still marked all
of Morpheus with exception of my moved downloaded mp3
files obviousely...I expected MSAS to still mark the
Morpheus program.
(bad) from Morpheus(Good)
I couldn't tell you <<

Not trying to be nasty John but that's not as hard as
one would think. The bundled spyware software present in
Morpheus is version dependent is it not? Besides that
the bundled spyware is installed as a seperate entity and
always has been so it should be looking for things
like "My Search Bar" and "Web Savings" and not the
Morpheus program, which is not spyware. Heck Webroot's
Spy Sweeper handles this with ease so MSAS can do it
also. It seems like MSAS is saying, "Oh they installed
Morpheus so they must have some form of bundled spyware
so we'll suggest removing Morpheus and the bundled
spyware will be gone". So who cares if it's a bundled
spyware version of Morpheus or not...just have the
spyware in the spyware definitions and not the Morpheus
program and be done with it...I've not tested any other
AntiSpyware program that suffers this problem like MSAS.
One test I'd like to see is to run a MSAS scan with a
version of Morpheus prior to v4.8, which did come with
bundled spyware. I'd be curious to know if it finds the
"My Search Bar" and "Web Savings" and then doesn't mark
the Morpheus program, my bet would be it still does.
Sadly the Morpheus executable is a download manager so
what we get is the latest version and I myself don't have
an earlier install with bundled spyware to test this
thought.

 

[JohnF.]

Thanks for your thoughts on that - getting people to express intelligent
details is sometimes impossible. Hopefully MS is reading and fixing.

 

[K. Brown]

I hate to say this John but after trying a number of
AntiSpyware programs I'm down to 2 favorites. Webroot's
Spy Sweeper and Microsoft's AntiSpyware.
Spy Sweeper is excellent at finding even residue left
behind that some other removal process missed...like
running it after Adaware. Spy Sweepers interface is far
more intuitive than that of MSAS. What it lacked was
folder configurability..which MSAS does have. Spy
Sweeper also pops up the entire program with an alert
message upon an event...which is huge and very annoying.
This may sound silly but my biggest like of MSAS is the
small pop up alters from the system try. I'm going to
post a wish list topic for MSAS and all the things I
think if improved could then surpass Spy Sweeper. I do
realize that MSAS is beta with great potential..hopefully
they do listen. It's not fare for me to compare these 2
program given MSAS's beta stages. I will say that once a
final version is released I'll post my thoughts on who
the best AntiSpyware Giant is..hey no pun intended