WARNING: JUNK AHEAD
Junk offender: Glary Utilities
Dustbin men seem to leave as much rubbish as they take away. You know when they’ve been, because your garden is covered in litter and dirty footprints. Well, Glary Utilities is the dustbin man of PC programs.
Over the last week or so, I’ve installed dozens of programs - some of which were good enough to end up in this issue’s Cover Feature and Best Free Software - and my hard drive and registry are very messy as a result. I thought the free version of Glary ( www.glarysoft.com/ glary-utilities) would help me clean up, but it left me with the PC equivalent of a litter-strewn front path.
Grubby Glary
Glary’s installer contains a tick box that says: ‘I agree to install Malware Hunter’. Malware Hunter isn’t a component of Glary Utilities – it’s another program from the same developer. In fairness, Malware Hunter isn’t a malicious program, and it’s not even pre-ticked (see screenshot). However, the tick box is designed to look like a part of the licence agreement, and many people in a hurry or unfamiliar with software installers would tick it.
If you do install Malware Hunter, your PC becomes a dangerous place. The program is an antivirus (AV) that runs in the background and will conflict with the AV you’re already using. It’ll also slow down your PC. What’s more, it’s a paid-for product. After 30 days you’re hit with a bill for $14.99 (£12) for a program you may not even know you’ve installed.
Glary had more junk in store. PCcleaning programs shouldn’t run constantly in the background, but Glary does. Why? To pester you with pop-ups. My first invited me to ‘Upgrade to the professional edition’. The next asked me to download an update. A few days later, one asked me to download another update. Glary, you see, only updates automatically if you pay $39.95 (£32).
Glary Utilities claims to be “The No. 1 Free, Powerful and All-in-one utility for cleaning your PC”, but litters your PC with unwanted background processes, hard-sell adverts and PUPS that conflict with your AV.
Tesco Bank has refunded £2.5m to 9,000 customers who had money stolen The company said that personal data was not “compromised” in the attack It is working with the new National Cyber Security Centre to investigate the hack, believed to be the biggest in UK banking history