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Old May 23rd, 2005
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verdyp verdyp is offline
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Join Date: January 13th, 2002
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Browserpage.dll, the version that ships with Windows versions, is not a spyware. It is a JNI native interface that allowed displaying an HTML page using the Internet Explorer component (because this itegration function is missing in Java itself).
It also contains the support that allows launching a file into your media player. It is open-sourced too.

But beware of other distributions not downloaded officially from LimeWire. They may include a tweked version which may be spyware. We don't know about them. But some antivirus or antispywares identify the file only because of its name or location, without checking for its file content integrity. Some known antispywares that causes such false alarms: all those from Computer Associates (whose very outdated database was sold from a company that went nearly out of business).

There are more serious antispywares today: SpyBot S&D is a basic one (it would have complained since long if LimeWire was effectively infected, given that the bundled DLL in Limewire have not been modified since very long!), SpywareBlaster (that just protects against the installation of some ActiveX components, but Limewire does not use or needs ActiveX), Ad-Aware SE (famous and well maintained), and even the new Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta which will expire in next August (based on the GIANT Antispyware that Microsoft bought recently).

So beware of imitations: P2P programs are very attractive as candidates for all sorts of malicious imitations. LimeWire is safe to use ONLY when it is downloaded from the official source, or when you compile it yourself with the open-source Limewire project. If you have downloaded a version from any other vendor, please report the link to the vendor site to Limewire using the support emails, so that it can check the accuracy of the dowload.

You may also have installed Limewire Basic found in a CDROM bundled with a magazine. Generally it should be OK, because it is the original distribution. If you have doubts about it, you can still download your installer from the Limewire website where you'll benefit of the latest certified update.

Tip: If your installation of LimeWire does not contain the user settings (in the options panel) to enable/disable the automatic update notifications, either it is too old (this option was added in Limewire 3.8), or it is a tweaked (non-original) version which may be malicious.

In both cases, you should uninstall it, and get the original update from the http://www.Limewire.com/ website.
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Last edited by verdyp; May 23rd, 2005 at 02:45 PM.
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