sent email to dxn concerning gainware

[triffid]

I have sent an email to DivX Networks pointing out that the gainware spyware program does not uninstall after uninstalling divx5 pro ad version. In fact, all the uninstall does is remove the divx codecs while leaving the folder behind along with the gainware gain_trickler_3xxx.exe and leaves it in the registry, as well as ram. According to the email I received back, this is news to them. I will post their reply here:

The Gator software should indeed uninstall itself once you uninstall
DivX Pro. However, this sometimes will take a little bit of time
(e.g., 30 minutes).

Is the software still on your system even now? If so, that is a
serious bug and we will contact the GAIN software developers
immediately.

I apologize for the problem you are having. We definitely want the
whole ad-support experience to be as user-friendly as possible.

Please write to me personally and let me know.

BTW: it has been over 24 hrs since uninstalling the program and the adware is still on my system and in RAM. I could easily remove it myself but, just in case what DXN told me is true, I am leaving it on my system in case they wish me to do further testing. Updates as I receive the response to the email i wrote back, which detailed what i just said here.

[Hanty]

Since it's a memory resident program I assume it wouldn't be truly gone from the system until you reboot after having uninstalled it.

[vcespon]

A little remark about Divx 5 Pro Addware:

Just remove Gator from memory and the startup section of the registry and i'ts over.

Divx 5 works perfectly without Gator loaded on memory, it just checks if it's registry keys are present. So don't uninstall it, simply avoid it being loaded.

[triffid]

yes, it is a memory resident program, so I agree it wouldnt be removed until i reboot my computer. However, it remains on my hard drive and the registry entries making it load on startup have not been affected by uninstalling the codec.

And yes i know how to remove the gator.

The reason I havent yet is to make it clear to Divx Networks that either they are lying to us that it will be removed upon uninstall of the codec, or that they are actually being misled and believe that it is removed upon uninstall of the codec.

heh sorry if i sounded impatient.

-triffid

[Doom9]

have you rebooted or have you not? it's not even possible to delete a loaded prog or dll while it's in use. Most likely there will be an additional autostart entry that will remove the remaining registry keys and the program itself upon the next startup. I've seen this many times before with different applications... you had to restart to get a clean uninstall. Please try that and report back

[triffid]

took your advice and rebooted, yet nothing changed. It just loaded up the gain_trickler_3whatever.exe again, taking up more ram than before >:(

After reading some other posts, this was what I expected to happen anyway. Anyway, I will keep up the correspondence with Divx Networks...if im not mistaken, they are unaware of Gator's SOP: to get on a computer and not leave until someone who knows enough about Windows goes into the registry and manually removes it.

Thanks again, and I will post updates once I receive a reply, probably later today.

-a tired triffid

[grovsnus]

I really fail to see the relevance of this topic and vote for it to be closed.