Kazaa scores top as No.1 spyware pest
Kazaa scores top as No.1 spyware pest
Computer Associates International has established Kazaa as the greatest spyware threat on the Internet because of its enormous popularity, having been downloaded 214 million times.
CA accused Kazaa of having clogging up machines with programs that slowed the systems down, including registry entries and directories that were not necessary.
Kazaa scored highly on CA's "clot factor", which is a measure of how much a pest 'gums up' a machine by adding registry entries, files, and directories.
As more objects are placed in a machine, manual removal becomes more difficult and more error-prone.
Ca says that the peer-to-peer program degrades network performance and consumes storage space because the package is bundled with adware or spyware.
Other programs included in the top five list of spyware threats included adware program Ezula, which came second, Adopt.hotbar.com, GameSpy Arcade and Download Accelerator Plus.
George Kafkarkou, the senior vice president of SMB and consumer channels at CA said: "Spyware isn't just an annoyance. It's a major security threat to everyone who uses a computer."
CA has also warned that Gator/GAIN/Claria and Grokster are the most rapidly spreading spyware programs.
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