Spybot Scam!!

[treetorn]

Look what your program did to my host file. It added over a 100 spam websites to my host file to redirect them to adds. And it added two backup host files too.

It seems that you guys might be behind this, scamming people for money.


Can you explain this?

[Zenobia]

Spybot doesn't add entries to the hosts file to redirect your computer to ads.It adds those entries to prevent your computer from accessing those sites.
Please see here:
http://www.safer-networking.org/faq/hosts-file/
And here:

The fourth level of protection is through the addition of HOSTS file entries. This is a passive protection. The HOSTS file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names and is loaded into memory at startup. The HOSTS file must contain one entry: "127.0.0.1 localhost". The IP address 127.0.0.1 is the local machine. Windows checks the HOSTS file before it queries any DNS (Domain Name System) servers, which enables entries in the HOSTS file to override addresses in the DNS. Adding an entry such as “127.0.0.1 malware.com” to the HOSTS file prevents the access of “malware.com” through IE because any connection attempts are redirected back to the local machine. HOSTS file entries can also be used to block other applications from connecting to the Internet.

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=281