Weather Bug: More then just Spyware, it's a pain in the ass

If there's one thing I hate, it's a program that can't behave itself. When my cubemate installed a program called weatherbug on the machine we share at work, I found it to be one of the most ill behaved programs I've seen.

WeatherBug is a program that displays the weather. I noticed it was installed when I started the machine, logged into my profile, and it started up on my desktop. I closed the program and imediatly an ad banner opened in it's place.

I looked for a way to disable the automatic start up in the software itself, and only found an option to start it minimized or maximized. I searched my start up folder, but didnt see it there, so I searched the registry under hkey_current_user and didn't find anything there either. I checked under hkey_local_machine and sure enough, there is was. I removed the key from there, and placed a shortcut in my cubemates start up folder.

the next day when I came in to work, weatherbug was back again. I checked back in the registry and the entry I removed was back. I wondered why my cubemate would re-install. curious, I removed the entry and started weatherbug back up again. then I wenbt back and checked the registry. the key was placed back in. at this point I figured the program checked for the existiance of the key each time it was started, and if it was missing, just added it back. so I left the key, but left it's value blank. but once I ran the program again the key returned again.

Now I was a little frusterated at the software. it doesn't seem to check for anything, everytime it's run, it simply places the key back into the registry. still, I refused to put up with the annoyance just becuse my cubemate didn't want to check weather.com to see if it's raining out. I checked online for a solution. I found Weatherbugs homepage and as well as a few sites warning about WeatherBug and the software it installs as being Spyware. Spyware (for those of you who dont know) is ANY SOFTWARE which employs a user's Internet connection, without their knowledge or explicit permission, to collect information personally identifiable or otherwise.

Weatherbugs homepage was useless. interesting enough, they must have caught wind that people have relized it's spyware, becuse they have a whole page devoted to trying to convince you WeatherBug isn't spyware, and that the information it gathers is simply allowing them to provide you better service. the makers of Ad-Aware a program that searches your system for known spyware programs disagrees. Weatherbug also states that the software it installs on your system in additon to weatherbug is not spyware. this is what their website tells you:

For example, one program we currently offer to some people who download WeatherBug is called "Gator." Gator is an enormously popular timesaving tool for people who surf the web. Some WeatherBug users have asked if Gator is "Spyware." It is clearly not.

strange becuse Gator is mentioned on almost every spyware site I've seen. would AWS, the people who make WeatherBug lie you to? well, here is what they say about my problem with Weatherbug in there FAQ:

5. How do I keep WeatherBug from starting when I start Windows?

WeatherBug is configured to start when you start Windows. This feature cannot be disabled. However, you may elect to have WeatherBug start either in full screen or minimized. Please click WeatherBug SETUP and OPTIONS to alter this feature.

I have yet to find a "feature" that cannot be disabled and this one is no exception. eventually I had to patch the EXE file to do it, but now, I can leave a shortcut in my cubemates startup folder, and weatherbug never goes near my desktop. good thing, as I dont need spyware running on my system anyway.

It took maybe 5 minutes to patch the file and patching future verisons should be just as easy. the patch will keep weatherbug from placing itself in the registry under hkey_local_machine - software - microsoft - windows - current version - run, and will instead put itself under hkey_local_machine - software - microsoft - windows - current version - old where it will be forever ignored.
you will however need to remove this key manually when you uninstall. it wont hurt anything to leave it in there, but it's a good idea not to clutter up the registry when you dont have to.

to download the patched EXE file click here.
back up the old file (or maybe dont) and copy this in it's place.

to find out more about spyware check these links:

InfoForce
privacy.net
spychecker.com

Update

This is the first time in a few years I've used your software. previously I had found your software ill behaved, and obnoxious. Your ties with gator, who has a history of questionable practices, your pop-up ads, and above all, your instance that every user of a system with weatherbug installed would have to endure weatherbug, put me in a position where I had little choice but to discourage anyone from using your software.
taking a look at your software now, I see things are a little improved. no longer does weatherbug start up automatically (regardless of profile or preference), and I didn't get a pop-up window when I closed it. Still, your software is to full of advertising, the install process is needlessly complicated, and by default installs 3rd party software (in this case, My Search Toolbar). To your credit, My Search Toolbar has not been listed in the databases of spyware or adware that I checked.
Overall you have much improved, but your software is still to focused on advertising. "less advertising" should not be the main incentive for people to pay you for the service. In short I no longer consider your software Evil, just annoying.

Update - Yes, Another One

here's what jay had to say about the information on this site:

"We are a member of the Homeland Security Initiative, supplying vital weather and emergency information to government institutions, hundreds of schools and over 100 broadcast partners in television and radio every day. We would NEVER do anything to compromise our integrity by allowing 'spyware' to be part of our application. Ad-aware, a spyware catching software from Lavasoft, MISTAKENLY labeled us for a very brief time as 'possible spyware.' They immediately corrected this when it was brought to their attention, but some people still have the mistaken notion because they haven't upgraded their Ad-aware. I wanted to mention this because at the end of your page on WeatherBug you noted you had upgraded (we just rolled out v5.02 if you haven’t upgraded to that yet) and you noted you had very few problems. I hope this is still the case and would ask that you verify with Ad-aware that we are no longer listed as any sort of spyware and that, if possible, a correction/update be made to your site."

Seeing as how this site still gets quite a bit of traffic I figured I would share what Jay had to say with the people who come here looking to see if Weatherbug is spyware.

I will also say that this webpage has been up for quite awhile. years even, and while there was a time that weatherbug would install gator (which is spyware) on your machine and would run itself on startup for all users of a system. those days are over.

these days (at the time of my last update at any rate) you have advertising to deal with (unless you pay), must suffer an inane download/install process and deal with an annoying uninstall as well, but that is a huge improvemet over the way things were done in the past.

I hope that weatherbug continues to move away from using spyware or adware with their products, and that other companys realize that people are concerned about software tracking what they do on the web.