Posted 08/13/09 at 09:09:11 PM by Andy Salisbury

As some of you may or may not know, Digsby has recently come under fire for hijacking your CPU cycles while you’re away from your machine in the interest of making a quick buck. In reality, Digsby is as free as the air you’re breathing, and you can reclaim the handy IM program in a matter of minutes.

So here are the facts: Digsby’s installer comes with a pile of bloatware (Weatherbug, Yahoo Toolbar, etc.) that’s all very avoidable. Instead of hiding checkboxes somewhere in the installer, you’re simply met with “Accept” and “Decline” buttons. After a few windows filled with offers, the installer shows you exactly what you’re putting on your PC. If you decline everything, only Digsby will be installed.

It also comes with a research module that will use your computer’s recourses while you’re away. According to Digsby’s blog, “The module turns on after your computer has been completely idle for 5 minutes (no mouse or keyboard movement).  It then turns off the instant you move your mouse or the press a key on the keyboard.  We did this so it would have absolutely no effect on your computer’s performance and only uses processing power while your computer is not being used.”

This is where they’ve come under fire – but fear not. This, just like the bloatware, is extremely avoidable. By simply navigating to your menu and going to Help > Support Digsby, there’s a button near the bottom that allows you to disable this (pictured above).

So if you’re interested in keeping your favorite all-in-one IM program and not hopping on the hate bandagon, just do this. The Internet is angry enough as is.

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Posted 02/27/09 at 02:15:50 PM by Paul Lilly

Angry public discourse reared its ugly head recently when Facebook appeared to try and pull a fast one by amending its Terms of Use contract to grant the social networking site never-ending rights to user-uploaded content. Following a public backlash and negative media attention, the site promptly pulled an about-face and rescined the new terms.

Mark Zuckerberg spoke about the privacy change during a press conference earlier this week, during which time he outlined a new, community driven plan in which any controversial changes will be put to a user vote.

"Last week, we put up old terms after we put up new terms," Zuckerberg said. "We took last week as a strong signal of how much people cared about Facebook and how much they want to govern it. We're happy to roll out these polices today."

To aid with the process, Zuckerberg said Facebook will form a "user council" in which it would "invite the authors of the most insightful and constructive comments on the draft documents to serve as founding members of the group."

Thoughts on Facebook democratizing it's Terms of Use? Hit the jump and sound off.

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Posted 02/18/09 at 10:50:19 AM by Paul Lilly

Facebook came under fire yesterday when it notifed users of a change to the social networking site's Terms of Use (ToU). What caused the backlash was the removal of a line which read, "You may remove your User Content from the site at any time. If you choose to remove your user Content, the license granted above will automatically expire."

What Facebook essentially did was grant themselves the right to all user-uploaded content for, well, forever. It no longer mattered if you removed anything from the site, because it would remain in Facebook's archives, giving the site free reign to use the content for as long as it likes.

To justify the decision, Facebook compared the policy change to that of sending an email to a friend. Even if you delete the sent email from your sent box, a copy still remains in the recipient's inbox, so according to Facebook, it was okay for the site to keep and use your content.

As can be expected, neither the new policy nor Facebook's analogy was met with much support from end-users. Following a barrage of complaints and negative press coverage, the social networking site today rolled back its Terms of Use to the previous version, which was last updated on September 23, 2008.

Here's one for Facebook: The squeeky wheel gets the grease.

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