Parasite: Onflow

This record last updated Tue Sep 20 2005 00:34:15

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Description

Onflow is a player for ‘rich media’ content. This is currently principally advertising with 3D animation.

Distribution

Very widespread, installed quietly by a very wide range of applications, games and even other parasites! OnFlow’s player plug-in also works in Netscape and Opera as well as IE.

What it does

Advertising

No. It allows sites to use more annoying advertising, but does not add extra advertising to unrelated sites.

Privacy issues

Minor. The Onflow player calls back to Onflow’s servers when an advert is played, with a player ID. This allows tracking in a similar way to ‘third party cookies’.

Security issues

Yes. Onflow includes a silent-updates feature.

Stability problems

None known.

Removal

The ‘Add/Remove Programs’ option seems to work fairly well. It leaves an ‘uninstall onflow’ item behind in your Program Files directory, but this is easy to delete.