Prevent Weatherbug install

[TooOne21]

Does anyone know how to prevent the installation of weatherbug on the user end?
This is a plague among programs that contains ad and spyware. I can install without Adminitrator privilages. What can be done to change this?

 

[addragyn]

Disable ActiveX or ditch IE.

There is no good reason whatsoever, and plenty against, constantly running IE. Juszt use it when absolutely necessary, for a home user that would likely be windowsupdate and *maybe* their bank's site.

 

[JW310]

Originally posted by: addragyn
Disable ActiveX or ditch IE.

There is no good reason whatsoever, and plenty against, constantly running IE. Juszt use it when absolutely necessary, for a home user that would likely be windowsupdate and *maybe* their bank's site.

How is disabling ActiveX or not using Internet Explorer going to prevent being able to install Weatherbug, the setup for which is a regular executable file?

JW

 

[Booty]

I'd say he was going on the assumption that your users were being prompted to download it from a website... like a plug-in type prompt. I've seen that lots of times. If they're actually seeking it out to download it and install it, then his post is irrelevant.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: TooOne21
Does anyone know how to prevent the installation of weatherbug on the user end?
This is a plague among programs that contains ad and spyware. I can install without Adminitrator privilages. What can be done to change this?

You really can install without admin privs? How? What happens during the install?

The solution is to take away write access to the local hard drive, use the network for data storage, and take away the 'run' access from the network. Sure, they can write to the network all day long, but they can't run any programs (like weatherbug).

 

[addragyn]

Originally posted by: JW310

Originally posted by: addragyn
Disable ActiveX or ditch IE.

There is no good reason whatsoever, and plenty against, constantly running IE. Juszt use it when absolutely necessary, for a home user that would likely be windowsupdate and *maybe* their bank's site.

How is disabling ActiveX or not using Internet Explorer going to prevent being able to install Weatherbug, the setup for which is a regular executable file?

JW

Because the OP got that .exe through an ActiveX dialog box. Whenever I've asked somebody where they got the bug they never knew - "it just appeared". Sure you can go to their site and download it but that's not the issue here.

 

[spyordie007]

dont give them enough privilages locally to install or run it; than enforce it with group policy

EDIT: and BTW IE under SP2 has dialogs that make it harder for end users to just "click okay and let it do whatever it's going to do"

 

[SUOrangeman]

> This is a plague among programs that contains ad and spyware.

This statement concerned me, as I run WeatherBug on my machine at work.

So, I promptly ran Ad-Aware (with the latest definitions) only to find that it did not detect WeatherBug as a problem. WeatherBug was not running at the time of the Ad-Aware scan.

I will admit that WeatherBug is adware, but I have found no reason to claim that it is spyware as well.

-SUO

 

[TooOne21]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
dont give them enough privilages locally to install or run it; than enforce it with group policy

EDIT: and BTW IE under SP2 has dialogs that make it harder for end users to just "click okay and let it do whatever it's going to do"

RUN, .EXE, INSTALL, SETUP, windows update are not allowed under group policy already.
ActiveX is needed for some of the trouble users.

Just using the proxy to stop all traffic, so come december and it is still 80 degrees on their desktop they will know it is not working.