Proprietary Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

Proprietary Software Is Often Malware

Proprietary software, also called nonfree software, means software that doesn't respect users' freedom and community. A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice.

The point of this page is that the initial injustice of proprietary software often leads to further injustices: malicious functionalities.

In this section, we also list one other malicious characteristic of mobile phones, location tracking which is caused by the underlying radio system rather than by the specific software in them.

Power corrupts; the proprietary program's developer is tempted to design the program to mistreat its users. (Software whose functioning mistreats the user is called malware.) Of course, the developer usually does not do this out of malice, but rather to profit more at the users' expense. That does not make it any less nasty or more legitimate.

Yielding to that temptation has become ever more frequent; nowadays it is standard practice. Modern proprietary software is typically a way to be had.

As of October, 2021, the pages in this directory list around 500 instances of malicious functionalities (with more than 620 references to back them up), but there are surely thousands more we don't know about.

If you want to be notified when we add new items or make other changes, subscribe to the mailing list <www-malware-commits@gnu.org>.

Injustices or techniques	Products or companies
Addictions Back doors (1) Censorship Coverups Deception DRM (2) Fraud Incompatibility Insecurity Interference Jails (3) Manipulation Obsolescence Sabotage Subscriptions Surveillance Tethers (4) Tyrants (5) In the pipe	Appliances Cars Games Mobiles Webpages Conferencing Adobe Amazon Apple Google Microsoft
Back door: any feature of a program that enables someone who is not supposed to be in control of the computer where it is installed to send it commands. Digital restrictions management, or “DRM”: functionalities designed to restrict what users can do with the data in their computers. Jail: system that imposes censorship on application programs. Tether: functionality that requires permanent (or very frequent) connection to a server. Tyrant: system that rejects any operating system not “authorized” by the manufacturer.

Injustices or techniques

Products or companies

Back door: any feature of a program that enables someone who is not supposed to be in control of the computer where it is installed to send it commands.
Digital restrictions management, or “DRM”: functionalities designed to restrict what users can do with the data in their computers.
Jail: system that imposes censorship on application programs.
Tether: functionality that requires permanent (or very frequent) connection to a server.
Tyrant: system that rejects any operating system not “authorized” by the manufacturer.

Users of proprietary software are defenseless against these forms of mistreatment. The way to avoid them is by insisting on free (freedom-respecting) software. Since free software is controlled by its users, they have a pretty good defense against malicious software functionality.

Latest additions

2021-10
Facebook's nonfree client forces its useds to look at the newsfeed. A used of Facebook developed a browser add-on to make it easier to unfollow everyone and thus make the newsfeed empty. Many of the people used by Facebook loved this, because they regard the newsfeed as a burden that Facebook imposes on them.

If the client software for Facebook were free, useds could probably make the newsfeed disappear by modifying the client not to display it.
2021-09
Some Xiaomi phones have a malfeature to bleep out phrases that express political views China does not like. In phones sold in Europe, Xiaomi leaves this deactivated by default, but has a back door to activate the censorship.

This is the natural result of having nonfree software in a device that can communicate with the company that made it.
2021-06
El Salvador Dictatorship's Chivo wallet is spyware, it's a proprietary program that breaks users' freedom and spies on people; demands personal data such as the national ID number and does face recognition, and it is bad security for its data. It also asks for almost every malware permission in people's smartphones.

The article criticizes it for faults in “data protection”, though “data protection” is the wrong approach to privacy anyway.
2021-09
Google's proprietary Chrome web browser added a surveillance API (idle detection API) which lets websites ask Chrome to report when a user with a web page open is idle.
2021-09
Apple has made it impossible to load Navalny's tactical voting app into an iPhone in Russia.

It is impossible because (1) the iPhone refuses to load apps from anywhere other than Apple, and (2) Apple has obeyed a Russian censorship law. The first point is enforced by Apple's nonfree software.

More items…