Published on September 9, 2002 By hawkon In WinCustomize News
It has been around for a while, but nevertheless a good program; Webshots at www.webshots.com.

With 3 months calendar on the screen, awesome naturephotos, huge library with lots of categories.
Comments
on Sep 10, 2002
Can you say..."SPYWARE?"
on Sep 10, 2002


...hmm..- agent-material huh...
I've experienced more obvious spy/ad bothering material than this one.
on Sep 10, 2002
While your saying spyware can you say ramhog !
on Sep 10, 2002
...giggle...almost like a convo in the early Napster days...refreshing
on Sep 10, 2002
It's the spyware that's NOT so obvious that you should be worried about.

I don't know whether or not Webshots is spyware. Spychecker http://www.spychecker.com/index.html doesn't list it, so it may very well be clean.

However, I do agree that it's a lot of bloat for a wallpaper changer. I'd rather manage my own wallpapers, and use a less intrusive wallpaper changer, such as Wallpaper Changer. http://www.wallpaperchanger.de/

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on Sep 10, 2002
-Can you say something that doesn't give you away as lame geeks ?

Try saying "net-hicks"

on Sep 10, 2002
Thanx for intelligent comments Tarkus, U can manage Webshots to be as intrusive or non-intrusive as u like..

Of course it is a tool for selfmanaging.
Thanx for the tip about Wallpaper Changer
on Sep 11, 2002
It's been awhile since I tried Webshots, so I apologize if I mischaracterized it. I just never liked the whole concept. YMMV.

The thing I like about Wallpaper Changer is I can set it to monitor a directory (including subfolders), and I can add and delete wallpapers and subfolders at will and it will automatically keep track of the changes.

It's truly a set and forget wallpaper changer. The only time I ever mess with it is when I want to monitor a specific subfolder instead of my overall wallpaper folder.

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on Sep 11, 2002
Please accept my apologies if I mis-represented this application. My personal experience with Webshots is that it adds Gator to the system and it is A MAJOR system hog on the equipment I work on all day. I work as a Tech. for the local school system and some of the PC's in the system are as old as PII 233's. All the teachers want their computer to look pretty and they always end up installing Webshots. I get a call later to figure out why their system is sooo sllooww. Can you say Frustration.

Again...I didn't mean to show my personal bias.
on Sep 11, 2002
i dont like it, if i do not remember wrong, you could only use the pictures from the site in their own format, so you do not get them as .jpg or .gif but some exe format or something, and you only got a few at a time
i am not going to use it as long as there is something better on the market
on Sep 11, 2002
There is no spyware in webshots, I have used it for almost 3 years, in that time the present owners sold it then bought it back, the old owners (1.5 yrs ago) had tried some spyware (don't remember which) for about a month, then quickly dropped it. I have about 848mb of wallpapers in it and right now on my system it is using 2.8mb of ram, hardly a resource hog. sometimes it is best to conduct research b4 making declarations. btw, I also run ad-aware 5.83 along with a firewall that would let me know if it phoning out, and it isn't.
on Sep 11, 2002
Cool comments...enlightening and informative

Webshots has a "Buy the Real Thing" catch, yes..but you can download jpg. bmp. gif. formats into it and use it as a controller similar to WB, IP and other products from Stardock.

- I didn't expect my little " hint" to produce such vital response

I am a musician/producer/keyboardist myself, with a heavy design " fetish"..Wincustomize with all these awesome skinners has given me a huge kick.

Humble Rumble from Graf.
on Sep 12, 2002
I'm not sure if this applies to Webshots or not but I have seen some other downloads that give you an option to include Gator or another such spyware. The default is nearly always checked yes so if you rush through some installations like I sometimes do you may inadvertanly accept gator without knowing it.

Brad
on Sep 14, 2002
I have to say there is nothing wrong with it. It just a wallpaper changer. No spyware. Yes you can put in your own wallpapers.

I heard about the system hog thing and hasn't been a factor for me. Also had the firewall thing and it aint phoning out.

Not a great program but it is cool. I like it