The free Kazaa peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application contains a third-party software program called Cydoor. Programs like Cydoor not only generate advertising banners and pop-ups, but they also send some information about your Internet surfing habits to outside advertising companies (to help them generate the ads).
The following instructions explain how to quickly and safely disable Cydoor on versions of the free Kazaa Media Desktop prior to KMD 2.5.
The following instructions explain how to quickly and safely disable Cydoor on versions of the free Kazaa Media Desktop prior to KMD 2.5.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 5 minutes
Here's How:
- Go to www.cexx.org/cydoor.htm
- Download the free, open source package CD_CLINT.ZIP to your computer. To do this, right-click on the CD_CLINT.ZIP and choose Save Target As. Save the file to a temporary folder on your hard drive.
- Open the file CD_CLINT.ZIP on your local hard drive and find the file CD_CLINT.DLL that is inside. Save the file CD_CLINT.DLL to the top-level folder where Kazaa is installed on your computer, often C:\Program Files\Kazaa\. A CD_CLINT.DLL file will already be present in this folder and you may be asked if you wish to overwrite it; answer Yes to this question.
- Cydoor is now disabled on this computer. The new CD_CLINT.DLL does not communicate on the network and is a harmless replacement for the old Cydoor library. You can now safely delete the package CD_CLINT.ZIP installed in Step 2 above.
Tips:
- Attempting to directly delete Cydoor without following these instructions will cause Kazaa Media Desktop to cease functioning.
- This procedure is unnecessary for Kazaa Lite clients; these clients do not contain any embedded third-party programs.
- The package CD_CLINT.ZIP also contains the source code for the new library. The technically inclined may be interested to view the source code to see how the technique of "stub" programming works.
What You Need:
- Installed version of the free Kazaa Media Desktop
- A functioning Internet connection
