Remember Little Bonzi

[michaelteo2000]

Anyone remember the little purple monkey that swing across your desktop, the little purple monkey that greets you every time your switch your PC, it will advice to get to sleep when it's late in the mod night?

This little purple monkey used to call Bonzi Buddy.

Who can tell me where to download the full version of it ?

[DKT27]

BonziBUDDY received wide recognition as malware, predominantly as a piece of adware, though claims of spyware capabilities have been made against it. Bonzi's homepage remained open after the discontinuation of BonziBUDDY and the website disappeared at the end of 2008.

Criticism

In April 2007, PCWorld readers voted Bonzi Buddy 6th on a list of "the top 10 most annoying tech products". One reader was quoted as criticizing the program because it "kept popping up and obscuring things you needed to see."

One of the last newspapers to write about BonziBUDDY while it was still in distribution described it as spyware and a "scourge of the Internet". Another article found in 2006 on the BusinessWeek website described BonziBUDDY as "the unbelievably annoying spyware trojan horse".

Adware or spyware

A number of sources identify BonziBUDDY as spyware, a claim the company disputes. In 2002 an article in Consumer Reports Web Watch labelled BonziBUDDY as spyware, stating that it contains a Backdoor Santa in that it collects information from users. Among the activities the program is said to engage in include constantly resetting the user's web browser homepage to bonzi.com without the user's permission, prompting and tracking various information about the user, and serving advertisements.

The Spyware Removal Database at Safer Networking (makers of Spybot – Search & Destroy) states "BonziBuddy is an Internet Explorer toolbar that may change your web browser settings, change your home page, and launch pop-up advertisements while tracking your web browsing habits."

Spyware Guide's entry on the program states that it is adware.

Anti-virus company Trend Micro classifies the software as adware in their spyware/grayware listings, but not malware^.

Anti-virus company Symantec classifies BonziBUDDY as Adware.

Legal

There were two legal cases about the software.

• Internetnews.com reported the settlement of a class action suit on May 27, 2003. Originally brought against Bonzi Software on December 4, 2002, the suit accused Bonzi of using its banner advertisements to deceptively imitate Windows computer alerts, alerting the user that their IP address is being broadcast. In the settlement, Bonzi agreed to modify their ads so that they looked less like Windows dialog boxes and more like advertisements.

• On February 18, 2004, the Federal Trade Commission released a statement indicating that Bonzi Software, Inc. was ordered to pay $75,000 in fees, among other aspects, for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 with BonziBUDDY.

Source.

Better to stay away from this adware/spyware/malware. ;)

Thread closed for requesting illegal materials, etc.