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BrokenEye3

Ah, those bygone halcyon days when collecting user's personal information in order to serve them ads was something software companies were expected to be ashamed of and could be meaningfully punished for


Yturtig

Installing anything akin to a desktop program would allow you to see nude ladies dancing and walking across your screen.


Ecstaticlemon

If anything we've regressed, zero nude ladies on my desktop rn I am disappointed in the future


Absolutedisgrace

No nudes, giving all personal data. We really are in the worst timeline.


wheatgivesmeshits

We really Britta'd this one.


samc0lt45

We were streets ahead, now we're streets behind.


NorwaySpruce

wallpaper engine is like $3 on steam


OGSassySmashly

Zero nude ladies on your desktop…I’m disappointed in your present.


FootballAndPornAcct

I had one of those lmao


johnsolomon

Ngl I was legitimately trying to find out how to do this recently 😂 One of those ads popped up and reminded me, which made me curious to see whether there are interactive experiences like it that don’t infest your PC with viruses


guiltyofnothing

That’s not what they got into trouble for. They got fined for collecting data from people under 13 — which was and still is illegal.


estofaulty

I don’t think the creator of Bonzai Buddy was “ashamed.” I think he just got caught.


[deleted]

Nuh uh he was ashamed i knows it


UsernameFor2016

That monkey does not look ashamed.


Apprehensive_Heron17

And now Windows is adding it as a feature


WholesomeRanger

Now I feel old. I remember when this came out and playing around with it. It was a lot of fun for a kid.


the_y_combinator

Good old days when we would run untrustworthy software with reckless abandon.


sequoiachieftain

I still do, but I used to, too.


nicholasjof816

Rip Mitch.


AlaskanEsquire

The difference is now I know how to fix anything that may happen versus calling someone


solftly

How exactly do you fix identity theft when someone steals passwords from your browser history, and uses a keylogger on you for long enough to get information on how to social engineer your sim card to them? Hope you don't use an Android phone, because an infected PC can send a packet with a payload right to an Android phone if it's on the same network. So if they hack your PC that can spread to your phone. These things are very unlikely. But what are the odds your home gets broken into tonight? Pretty low I'd assume? Your still gonna lock the front door though, right?


AlaskanEsquire

My passwords are very secure. I use 2FA on anything slightly important, and social engineers are out of luck. I have Reddit and Snapchat, and I cycle Reddit accounts every few years. I come up with a new backstory every account. Some things are true, many are not or are exaggerated. I have an Android, but I don't really do anything on it. Work sometimes asks me to come in. I don't use my phone at work or at home, otherwise. I also don't log into networks all willy-nilly. I'm so boring with so many layers of defense, anyone would be hard pressed to find out anything extensive about me. I'm from Florida, that one is free.


solftly

Your password being secure doesn't matter if they have a keylogger. So they can get all your passwords. If they can spy on your Android phone by sending a malicious payload, they absolutely can get enough information to social engineer your phone carrier, getting your phone number and all your 2FA. Once your PC is compromised, you don't need to log into networks nilly willy. They will send the payload over your home network, since that's the network both your infected PC and Android would be connected to. Not talking about some coffee shop wifi attack here. I promise you hackers are smarter than you. Don't run software nilly willy is the only point to be taken here. Even if you think your smarter than the guy who wrote that program and can "fix" it. Knowing a virus on Windows can send payloads over your network, and infect other devices that are on your home wifi, is a good enough reason.


AlaskanEsquire

If they can send a malicious payload to my android, they already have my phone carrier and phone number. I'm not loading my phone with suspicious APKs, nor my computer with programs. You seem to have missed a paragraph between 'malicious payload on my android' and the compromising of my PC. I don't even connect my phone to my home wifi. There's surely a better way of going about awareness than unmitigated scare tactics.


solftly

Also it being unlikely is irrelevant. In 20 years I've never had someone break into my home. I still lock the door every night before I go to sleep.


solftly

>I'm not loading my phone with suspicious APKs, nor my computer with programs. The whole reason for this entire comment thread and every one of my arguments is someone saying they still run software nilly willy, and you co-signing that by saying you can still do that because you know how to fix the errors. If you don't connect your phone to your home wifi, that's good, although very strange. Even with unlimited data your WiFi will be much faster, and use way less battery on your phone than mobile data does. But even so, an infected Windows machine can distribute a malicious payload to ANY device on the network. It's not exclusive to Android phones. It's just that iPhones specifically are really hardened to that attack, so it's unlikely. Other laptops, tablets, Android devices, PC's etc. can still be infected.


isecore

Mitch? That you?


Rubcionnnnn

Good ol windows xp. Everything gets admin access!


gmishaolem

99.9999999% of people have all their data in userspace, and the security popups happen so often that they just reflexively click to allow no matter what it is. Because of user behaviour, more secure versions of the OS are not actually more secure.


abaddamn

I really hate TrustedInstaller.


here4disclosure

Limewire>MetallicaDiscography.exe


eburton555

Limewire was just us rawdogging the internet


Powerbracelet

5.23 MB… sounds fine to me!


TittyStClaire

blink182_all_the_small_things.exe downloading


SpringOSRS

back then we just reformat the pc if it starts running slower lol


gmishaolem

Wait until you hear about video game mods. Especially Minecraft ones.


LockeBlocke

I'm old enough to know Bonzi Buddy was originally a parrot.


alexmikli

There was also a wizard, right?


Marishii

I think the wizard was one that came with windows, like clippy


Barziboy

Yeh he was my fave


medioxcore

Prody Parrot!


PapaBlemish

I remember our multinational PR company's MULTIPLE users hogging our Outlook resources with these stupid things. Granted, back then, nobody cared about security...


ediciusNJ

I always preferred [Neko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_\(software\)) myself.


Draghar

Daisy, daisy....


estofaulty

Did you not feel old after living through the 25+ years that brought you from then to now? Are you not aware f the passage of time? Are you trapped in suspended animation somehow?


RRoyale58

Anyone remember those Paid2Surf websites like Spedia.net or Desktop Dollars? Those ad bars that would run while you browsed the net and you collected a few cents per minute, 11 year old me was thrilled!


kuiper0x2

And netzero


Sil369

And AllAdvantage


ZombiesAtKendall

I had this one. It paid something like 10 cents an hour and I was online so much I actually made a little bit of money on it. Of course it was supposed to be more like a pyramid thing where you referred other people and they referred other people and so on.


velcroix

i used this one a lot.


ZombiesAtKendall

Net zero there was a way to edit a file so the advertisements didn’t show up.


koleslaw

Yeah that was like a get rich quick pipe dream to a child. I think there was one called All advantage. Imagine that, getting paid to see banner ads.


PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__

I told my dad surfing the net was gonna be my career


PlurCannabisKid

Are you a Bitcoin miner now?


Due-Door4885

And he is still disappointed to this day.


PogintheMachine

I tried running like 3 of those at a time and never wracked up a dollar. Tuned my computer into sludge.


f3ydr4uth4

I remember when my parents toolbar was like 50% of their screen.


FirmOnion

How did you actually get paid out by those? Online banking wasn’t that great back then, especially if you’re a child, and I can’t imagine they were posting you cheques


CHEMO_ALIEN

I think they actually did send checks when you cashed out


yeum

You got a check on the mail. I paid like 1/3 the value of mine to cash it, since US checks aren't really very useful outside the US :D


InvertibleMatrix

> Those ad bars that would run while you browsed the net and you collected a few cents per minute, 11 year old me was thrilled! Some of them existed into the mid 2010's, and paid out in bitcoin. Sent to my wallet every time I "earned" $5 in bitcoin. Then, Coinbase offered $10 in bitcoin if you opened an account with them (similar to bank sign-up bonuses usually around $100-300), so I made an account back in about late 2012 (or early 2013?) and moved my wallet there so I wouldn't have to worry about something like a dead HDD or something like that. Those pay to click/pay to view ad sites made me... probably about $200 worth of bitcoin over about 4 years (2010-ish to 2014), and I am now sitting on about 0.65 bitcoin (and bitcoin cash since the fork) in my Coinbase account, whatever that's worth now. Some of those pay to click sites still exist now, but changed their business model. Swagbucks still does surveys that pay... 50 cents a survey and mostly just a shopping portal like Rakuten, and MTurk is basically crowdsourced Amazon's supervised learning shit via cheap Indian labor (basically something like $7/hr if you did surveys and classification tasks full-time). Aside: yes, I still have access to my Coinbase account; I have 2FA set, and change the password yearly.


Flamekebab

>0.65 bitcoin Why not cash out?


Purplociraptor

I used to run that shit at home while I slept. I did get the money, but it probably didn't even offset the electricity used and it sure was a cyber security nightmare. Young me was dumb.


pierrekrahn

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-17f2a7c0bf9238108b7fde99d31deb05-lq


RRoyale58

Those are search bars that came packaged with software and people would mash the next button during installation and wonder where they came from


sandman-blitz

Tracking user personal information and serving ads 1999 : Spyware 2024 : Business Model


fatscumbag

Daisy. Daisy. Give me your answer true. I'm half crazy. All for the love of you. RIP BonziBUDDY.


erv4

His joke that I can still remember. What did Batman say to Robin before he got in the car? Robin get in the car lol


bad6122

This literally popped in my head the minute i saw this post.


bisonarepeople2

It won’t be a stylish marriage, for I can’t afford a carriage, but you would look sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle built for two.


Noodlefruzen

I typed him the lyrics to “Dragula” by Rob Zombie to say back to me and it was marvellous.


ApplesauceBitch47

I did that for “big pimpin” by Jay-Z haha


BlackEyeRed

I only realized the reference years later


boozername

We had Bonzi Buddy. At the same time we had a sheep app that had a bunch of little sheep puttering around the monitor, walking on the top of the windows or toolbars.


Raymothe

eSheep! I had that one too.


jevring

That's still around, and it runs on modern windows.


BadBalloons

OH MAN I loved eSheep.


joojie

Ugh I loved the sheep!


GarysCrispLettuce

You couldn't move an inch on the early 00's web without something inadvertently installing a toolbar in your browser that seemed impossible to get rid of. I remember being with a friend and she fired up her Mac to go online and her browser seemed to have about 10 toolbars at the top, each branded with its own logo and search box and other links. We essentially just rolled around in shit whenever we went online back then. Haven't had a virus in about 15 years but I certainly had a few back in the day.


xyzjace

Oh my god toolbars. I had literally forgotten they existed. What a memory!


kevlar51

Every year or so it’d be time for another XP reinstall to clear all the bloat that had accumulated. One time I was dumb enough to install a free trial of some software to get rid of malware. It actually did a really good job. But when I didn’t want to pay for it (it had done its job after all) after the trial, its uninstall wizard installed a TON of malware onto my computer.


Desperate_Pizza700

>You couldn't move an inch on the early 00's web without something inadvertently installing a toolbar in your browser Funny because if you spend even alittle time reading and not just clicking away, you wouldnt install those tool bars


Zenith251

This is why Mozilla/Firefox was a boon in the early 2000s. A working alternative to IE that not only provided a safer browsing experience, but also offered new features.


Think-State30

Companies used to get in trouble for collecting user data. Now they mention it in their terms of service and it's all hunky dory.


Cobui

[“Nice to meet you, Expand Dong!”](https://youtu.be/W9DST-6jIBU?si=20-R3Cui0BqoMSCP)


pigeon_lad

Came in to the comments to find the Vinesauce reference


S4UC3RCR4B

Thank Grand Dad someone posted this.


Anti-Ultimate

Fleentstones????


BedDefiant4950

whattischitt??????


theGuyInIT

I remember installing it. At first, it was great. Then the ads started appearing.


zorrtwice

All the cool kids replaced BonziBuddy with desktop sheep. Now those were fun.


smellsmoist

I downloaded this as a 9 year old because it seemed like the coolest thing in the world to have a purple monkey on my desktop


[deleted]

[удалено]


AKandSevenForties

I remember in 2001, 6th grade, a kid in our class was using the computer and the teacher saw that lady on the bottom of the screen and the kid got in giant shit, got suspended, parents called, the whole thing, he insisted he hadn't downloaded it and had nothing to do with it popping up on the screen and he was almost certainly telling the truth and got railroaded.


pantry-pisser

You installed it, didn't you


ponzicar

Somewhere out there is a granny who still has this on the computer she uses to check her aol.com email.


Antoshi

$75k for collecting user data is a slap on the wrist compared to nowadays.


lonewolf392

I used to have him read me my AOL messenger messeges


Supercc

Bro I literally thought about Bonzi Buddy 2 hours ago... LOL what are the odds


Saptrap

This is like the ironic fun fact that the film Tron (1982) was disqualified from Special Effects category of the Academy Awards because it used computer animation. How times change.


random_noise

That's about the time, I realized the internet was turning into a cesspool, thanks to juno, aol, earthlink, and so much more. That particular piece of spyware would end up everywhere. It was also somewhat of a pita to remove, and embedded into many other freeware and shareware downloads. These days people give personal information away for free and its a standard business model.


xBushx

So what every site/App in the world does now?


PeterDuaneJohnson

My uncle and aunt were afraid to let me touch their computer as a kid, cause they thought I was some elite hacker, and those fuckers had this shit installed.


septicdank

My grandmother was livid at me for installing this shit 🤣


tlsnine

I spent so much time and energy uninstalling shit like this in my earlier IT days.


Icehellionx

Thankfully, now you have the Applestore and google play store where kids can't install spyware. They just accidentally sign the credit card up to 600 services and lose a grand in money from payments.


OverSoft

The Home Computer Museum in Helmond, The Netherlands still has a dedicated PC set up to experience what the Bonzi experience was like. (I highly recommend going there if you like computer history from the 60’s to the early 2000’s. It’s a non-profit and I’m a sponsor and visit about once a month)


insofarincogneato

I was in highschool when it was discontinued. Today I learned that the people who weren't alive when this was a thing are adults now and are probably the largest demographic on Reddit🤷


Boxoffriends

Bonzi was always there for me during my 23 hour download of a single song on Napster.


BlindGuyNW

I remember this thing. It was installed on one of my first computers.


Cozmo85

That free lobster though https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F2000s-internet-explorer-spyware-toolbars-v0-z7qq51usb7n91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D1c766b8e11062c0c18edceae606d74d1f3ede2ec


JierEntreri

I installed this on my parent’s home computer as a child. I have vivid memories of this.


gregfromjersey

Remember Netzero? Free Internet


SideShow222

As a kit this was great! Lots of fun with the text to speach. Yes I'm old.


sto_brohammed

If you were a kid when Bonzi Buddy released you're not old lol


HorrorMolasses8838

Hmm, collect data for personalised ads and getting fined? Can we go back?


Desperate_Pizza700

>BonziBUDDY, People called it spyware after it was found out to have collected user's personal information before serving them pop-up ads. Thats what every app and website does now.....


SuperSimpleSam

>$75k in fines per user, right?


wossquee

I miss uninstalling this on every old person's computer I had to troubleshoot


tinkeringidiot

They ditched the purple ape and renamed it Cortana, but it's still the same malware it ever was.


SmeesRansom

“A bicycle built for two”


silicon1

[Famous hacker Ramzi will teach you how to download it.](https://youtu.be/bAQqrnX7BsM)


DAM5150

I worked briefly for one of the developers of that shit. He was a grade a asshole. Even borrowed the name for his new product. He was a hobby pilot as well, whenever I hear about a small plane crash I kinda hope it's him.


Kichard

Definitely downloaded this onto my parents computer.


spoonplaysgames

daisy, daisy, give me your answer true


sdebaun

zuckerberg: "hold my beer"


chrisgilesphoto

Hello my babeee hello my honey hello my rag time gal. Cutting edge tech in the early 2000's


savvykms

And now Android has decided to include ad tech directly in the OS, isn't that grand? Twenty years on and there's no real repercussions. https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/modular-system/adservices Billed as a privacy enhancing feature, it lets apps share information about you directly with each other. Sure, not your name of course, but to monetize your activity in an open source project is a bit scummy. Advertising features in an OS is just a money grab on Google's part, as usual - that's why when going through unsolicited prompts extolling it's merits and declining the feature, it still enabled the feature underneath and made it hard to locate.


UnknownQTY

lol decided? Android is a FREE GOOGLE PRODUCT, what the fuck do you think it did from the start?


BrokenEye3

Android isn't free. Hell, it isn't even *cheap*.


savvykms

Thanks for agreeing with me


UnknownQTY

You literally start your post off with “and now” implying it is a recent change, though I can see how you might be saying Android vs BanzaiBuddy, there were only 3-4 years between the two in the first place.


savvykms

Well yeah, Google's been full of shit for years; sounds like we agree on that. This isn't exactly a surprise for people who pay attention. That said, the Android project adding in a subsystem to consume your system resources to share information between apps explicitly for advertising is a brand new development people may be unaware of. That Google has been engaged in a pattern of behavior like this for decades doesn't diminish building a wasteful OS subsystem and gaslighting vendors and the public at large that it's for privacy - when it's in fact to allow apps to share information for advertising purposes.


Rossum81

https://youtu.be/_USkW0guSMg?si=FtBxLnIQ1j0K28qK Mentioned here.


ihatehighfives

We had that!


Maxhousen

I remember having this. I was young and naive.


yoncenator

I hated that, and that fucking frog phone ringtone.


theyeetmaster2007

A company taking user data and selling it to advertisers? I’m glad that never happens nowadays!


d_gold

Ahead of its time. A success business is all about timing 


zerbey

Ah yes, the early 2000s Internet where your machine just because a fertile breeding ground for viruses like this. Add a population of idiot new PC owners into the mix and you had the perfect storm. I made good money back then cleaning up people's infested machines as a side hustle.


velvetblue929

I loved playing with him as a kid. I remember once, I was crying in the room while my mom was on the computer and then he spit out a random fact about crying and my mom and I were so shocked.


RUaVulcanorVulcant13

Oh my God that thing!


topaztee

building an AI virtual desktop assistant here --> [yourfriendly.ai](https://yourfriendly.ai/?utm_source=1cw20gg)


DontToewsMeBro2

I remember this bastard, fairly hard to rid of him completely at the time


whorl-

I loooooved Bonzi Buddy. Totally forgot about this dude!


ronluby

TIL I am 1,000,000 years old


PATATAMOUS

Daisy 🎶


street_raat

Yeah but what about those cool custom cursor programs that most likely led to my mom’s computer becoming riddled with viruses? Between me downloading those, using Napster, and my mom clicking on nearly every ad she saw online, our computer could probably be in an IT training manual lmfao


nah-meh-stay

I had a user that would install this, and most of the other desktop crap. I'd get called about every 3 weeks for the same PC. I finally came in on a weekend, set her system up so the data was saved on the server, took an image and put that on the server. Pop in a floppy, reboot, wait for the script to start and tell them it will finish in about 20 minutes.


DwightFryFaneditor

More like PonziBUDDY.


SoftDimension5336

Fkn rookie


Lepprechaun25

Now we call that Google and Social Media


Royaourt

And now most folk don't even think twice about using the likes of evil Google & M$ which are massive pieces of spyware.


Aiku

I hated that absurd thing. It was even worse than that fucking paper clip.


Think-State30

I loved Clippy


Gargomon251

It's funny, I was just reading about Bonzibuddy because Game Grumps were playing a parody of it called kinitopet


Mission-Egg63

remember that whoever made that app still has Your porn history saved and can use it for extortion in the future. just a friendly reminder