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OldPlayer bundled malware

OldPlayer is dead. We now can embed videos directly into website code without the use of OldCodec.

OldCodec was great in its time. It was an easy, effortless way to embed pictures and videos into websites. Now, you cannot be called a modern web developer if you use OldCodec just to embed an image on a website. Using OldCodec for videos at least makes a little sense. Now that we have lots of popular file formats, the .OCIMG (OldCodec Image) image file extension is no longer needed.

One of OldPlayer Technologies Inc's worst practices was to bundle their software with downright malware. There are small-font pre-checked checkboxes for three programs: "Super Toolbar Pack", "Viper Antivirus", and "EZPower".

Even the code is simpler. Here is the code for the above image in the OldCodec Format (EDIT: The OldPlayer Installer.ocimg file has been deleted):

      <embed src="/media/OldPlayer%20Installer.ocimg" type="application/oc-image" style="width: 50%; height: 50%;"></embed>
    

And here is the code for the above image in PNG format:

      <img src="/media/OldPlayer%20Installer.png" style="width: 50%; height: 50%;">
    

Here at SimTech Corp, we installed OldPlayer and its bundled malware on a virtual machine. The results were horrendous (we saved the two most shocking ones for last):

• We got a notification every 3 minutes asking us for our credit card number to upgrade to "ViPro", a premium plan for one of the bundled malware programs, Viper Antivirus.
• In Process Manager, a process called "Viper Antivirus" was hogging our CPU (at 90 - 100%) and memory (3000 - 5000 MB).
• Four useless toolbars from the "Super Toolbar Pack" took up over 50% of the Webtron program and the website part was so small it was practically useless. When we tried to use the toolbars, they asked us to upgrade to their premium plan.
• EZPower corrupted the "shutdown.exe" and "restart.exe" files and now we can't shut down or restart the computer (!).
• After opening a new program in the Program Files folder called "viper_antivirus.exe", it told us our computer was infected. We clicked on the "Fix Problems Now" button, and it deleted the "lock.exe" file (!). Now we can't even lock our computer. (Remember: don't worry, we did this on a virtual machine.)

Lesson learned: Be careful of pre-checked boxes when you install. Don't just rapidly click through the dialogs.

This article was one of the first in Webtron News, a news retrieval client built into Webtron.