What do you think when a Casino software, some toolbars and a girl dancing on your desktop do appear on your computer, without you wanting them to do so? We think that's a typical case of what has different names, from trojan downloader or trojan dropper to hijacker.

Well, those probably not fully naked dancing desktop girls from that malware package are something named DeskMates from a company called Oska Educational Systems Pty Limited. Whether this kind of anatomy is really educational is another question not to be dealt with today, more important is that Oska didn't like their "mates" to be detected as a part of a trojan installation - understandable if they should have nothing to do with the trojan. But then, instead of working with us to stop the trojan horse that is spreading their software (and if it is an affiliate they pay money for each installation, they should have the financial records to track it), they rejected any of our attempts to help them track down the trojan source, instead - even though they clearly showed that they do not want to know anything about those trojans from us - letting their attorney tell us mysterious stories on how this would be impossible, and that they will sue us for the damages to their reputation done by this trojan instead.

They also asked us to no longer detect their software even if installed without user consent by this trojan horse, to post a public apology in this place after removing any other reference to their name, delete any correspondence from and to Spybot-S&D users who had been this trojan, stop helping further Spybot-S&D users that get infected with this trojan... all of which we're not going to fulfill obviously.
Since, while their software in itself is quite harmless actually, the company behind it has shown an attitude that would really let me think twice to install their software (and if these threats are not enough, take a look at their opt-out shopping basket, which seems quite contra bonos mores), so, sorry Oska, but... at least we fullfilled your lawyers wish for a news article in this place within the timeframe you've given.

While still waiting for Microsofts feedback on the Certified for Vista status for Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.5, we were also informed by Microsoft that our old version 1.3 and the current version 1.4 do qualify for the Works with Vista logo status (means that they do work on Vista nearly the same way as on XP without any updates needed), so we verified the requirements, and are now able to tell you that Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.3 and 1.4 officially received the logo you can see on the right side.

Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.5 will be released as soon as Microsoft has certified it, which sadly took more time than expected, since the standard requirements were not really fit for anti-malware software.

Over the next weeks, we will also probe our other tools to get the Works with Vista logo for them as well were possible, with future updates including features gearing towards a Certified logo.

During the past year, we've usually had updates available on Fridays. Friday is a nice day, weekend coming &c, but it also meant that feedback on updates hit us during the two days of the week where we're slower to react if necessary. So we've decided that beginning this week, we'll publish updates on Wednesdays.