Miro Video Converter should be removed from tools

[Siegfried Kiermayer]

Hi,

i had  a really bad experience this weekend: I wanted to try out VP8 and VP9 and was looking for a simple tool on Windows. I went to http://www.webmproject.org/tools/ and downloaded Miro Video Converter.

I do trust webmproject and didn't thought much about the Downloader from Miro Video Convert and accepted nearly blindly the stupid installer. I caught the 'do you wanna install some crapware as well?' not fast enough and sweet pages installed itself.

So what is sweet page doing? It actualy hijacks chrome, firefox and internet explorer. The realy bad thing about this crapware: You can't just uninstall it. It modifies the shortcut from firefox and internet explorer in a way that it still shows the sweet page page.

I thought at first 'WTF? Are they hacked?' and had to find out, to my disbelief, that they that on purpose:

'A developer of Miro wrote that the Windows installer installs proprietary commercial software such as browser add-ons, also known as crapware,^[7] stating "This is one of the primary ways we fund continued Miro development."^{[8]' Wikipedia}

Now you might think 'hey its your fault, you don't have to click accept' but who really can trust people who make software with money they earn by currupting other users pcs?

When you google for sweet page you will find pages like this:

• Sweet-page.com Removel - spywaremove.com
• Sweet Page Virus removle
• 3 Ways to get Rid of Sweet page
• Remove Sweet-Page.com hijack (Virus Removal Guide)
  

Basically installing Miro Video Converter compromise your PC, Miro Video Converter and http://www.pculture.org (Organization standing behind Miro) are horrible people and should stop developing software : (.

I propose to remove that Tool from http://www.webmproject.org/tools/ or better, remove the link but warn people.

Tx for reading,

Siegfried Kiermayer

[Lou Quillio]

Investigating.

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Lou Quillio
Webmaster, WebMProject.org

[Lou Quillio]

Confirmed and agree. Link removed. Thanks.

LQ

[dean.r...@gmail.com]

Hello Siegfried (and list),

I'd like to apologize for the trouble this toolbar has caused. I'm part of the Participatory Culture Foundation – the non-profit org that develops Miro Video Converter.

We've been working with the toolbar company for quite a while, and had made sure that all applications were reversible and uninstallable. The offering has helped fund a lot of mission driven work – in addition to funding development on Miro Video Converter, it has enabled us to work on Miro, the Open Video Alliance, Amara, and many other projects.

Upon getting word of the problem, we switched Miro Video Converter to a standalone installer and will not enable the toolbar again unless we can guarantee that any changes are fully reversible.

Thanks for being understanding as we resolve the issue.

Best,
Dean

[Dóra Ísleifsdóttir]

Hello

I am going mad trying to get rid of Miro Video Converter from my Mac, where it constantly overrides and removes—as it is lodged in the update option and will not stop even though I removed it the best I could—an application I need with the same name (Miro).

I need an uninstaller. Very much.

Thank you in advance.

[Roshan Baliga]

Hi Dóra,

Sorry to hear about your issue, but the WebM Project has nothing to do with the Miro Video Converter application.

Thanks,

 Roshan

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[Vadim Rykov]

Hi, if you want to avoid such problems in the future, look carefully what software you install, the installer can always hide something like what you described.
Last time I downloaded the official 3G2 converter and I didn't have any problems, so only use official programs.

среда, 17 сентября 2014 г. в 22:29:10 UTC+4, Siegfried Kiermayer: