Deleted spyware from Kazaa, now program won't run...

Factual Questions
1

Knowing that KaZaA is crammed with spyware, I downloaded and installed Kazaa, then immediately ran Ad-Aware on it. Sure enough, Ad-aware identified and removed 6 pieces of spyware from my computer that were not there prior to the Kazaa installation.

Once the spyware was removed, I attempted to run Kazaa. However the program gave me an error message, then aborted. It said something to the effect of “you have removed files that Kazaa needs to run, please re-install”.

Now what? I will NOT allow spyware on my machine. And by the way, the Kazaa website claims that they don’t use spyware…uh huh, sure.

2

“I ain’t payin’ no 50 cents for no coke!”
“well, then you ain’t gettin’ no coke! Know what I’m talkin’ about?”
–Caddyshack

Looks like that’s about your choices. If you don’t allow spyware on your system but want kazaa, then you ain’t gettin’ no kazaa.

Unless you are an expert debugger/cracker, and can patch kazaa to run without it.

3

I don’t use it myself, but this might work for you: Kazaa Lite, supposedly a version of the software with the spyware removed.

There was a thread here a while back that had a link to a “dummy file” that tricked Kazaa into thinking it was the spyware, and it worked great for me until I downloaded the latest version, which overwrote the dummy file.

4

Kazaa lite still pops up some ads, but I think the spyware is hacked out. Ad-aware will find a spyware file (cydoor?) but it’s a dummy file that you should exclude from Ad-aware’s deletions.

5

I third Kazaa lite.

6

So KaZaa is lying through their teeth when they claim on their website that “Sharman Networks does not condone the use of ‘spyware’ and does not use ‘spyware’ in KaZaA Media Desktop”

Big surprise, not.

7

We at the Straight Dope take intellectual property rights seriously. Use of file-sharing programs generally involves copyright infringement, so we don’t permit threads about how to use them. This thread is closed.