AOL can’t catch a break… definitely not from us, and only less invariably from the rest of the Internet. Just when you thought their acronym would fade from our RSS feed comes the news that AOL 9.0, their new, free Internet software, has been slapped with the “badware” stigma by StopBadware.org.

Badware isn’t as bad as malware, spyware or scumware, but it’s still pretty… bad. According to StopBadware.org, AOL 9.0 interferes with computer use to meddle with the IE browser (a small crime) and the Windows taskbar. It also has been accused of “deceptive installation.” On top of that, some components don’t install at all.

To be fair to AOL, they’ve already taken steps to address StopBadware’s concerns, but it’s not good when a consortium of web experts dedicated to exposing malicious software underline a fact everyone already knows: AOL sucks. Thanks to Brandon!

AOL 9.0 Accused of Behaving Like Badware [PC World]

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