To those of you who believe that there is little security risk in this one particular software installation, I would say that you are probably correct. However, when (as most of us do) we install many programs that may connect to the internet, being probably correct is insufficient. It only takes one malicious program or even one thought to be (and designed to be) benign by its developers, but that opens a security hole (that neither you nor the developers are aware of) to cause real problems on a computer. Many of you may be surprised to find that you have what is commonly referred to as spyware already on your computers. You can easily check for free via the following web sites
[Link: webroot.com]
or
[Link: webroot.com]

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the SONY CD software scandal that I referred to in an earlier post, it is reviewed here:
[Link: vnunet.com]

The real problem that I have with the Harmony software installation is not that they ask you to disable anti-virus software before installation, most software installations ask that you do that to make life easy for the company�s tech support, but I have rarely found it to be necessary to actually do this. The problem is that it asked me to reduce the security of my browser without telling me what it intended to install. The installation could be some innocuous cookies that just go back to the harmony domain or it could include tracking cookies from companies that sell information on you computer usage, etc. If it would simply try to install the cookies (rather than simply say to change your security settings) you could give (or deny) permission for each cookie individually. Generally software will work without the tracking cookies as they are not essential.

I should also point out that since my last post, I have spoken with Peter Evans, who is Harmony�s customer relations director (or some similar title). He completely understood the problems and said he would suggest that appropriate changes be made to the software. He also agreed with me that it was not necessary for the software to run continuously in the background. Hopefully, these constructive changes will be made. Then, I would be happy to join those of you who seem to admire these remotes for their functions.