[General] Is SBC's cfd.exe Spyware or Adware? SBC says, "No."

Comments

# Jerry Pisk said on July 18, 2004 08:10 PM:

Just don't use any of the software supplied by your ISP, especially if it's not a real ISP (generally phone and cable companies have no clue what it takes to be an ISP).

There are two types of broadband connections used: 1. DHCP and 2. PPPoE. In case your ISP uses DHCP just set your box to pull its setup over DHCP, if it uses PPPoE download a PPPoE dialer, for Windows use RASPPPoE (www.raspppoe.com).

I've also seen ISPs NATing their users but that seems to be limited to Eastern Europe, and even their they use DHCP…

# Derick Bailey said on July 19, 2004 10:41 AM:

The best way to do a broadband connection is not to even hook your computer directly to the cable/dsl modem. Buy a firewall/router that is built for broadband connections and connect that firewall/router to the modem, then connect your computer the firewall/router.

I used to have SBC DSL and this is how I did it - it worked great, because the NetGear FS318 firewall/router that I got supports the PPPoE that SBC uses. It also supports the DHCP that my now Time Warner (Roadrunner) Cable modem uses.

I never have to worry about installing any drivers for any ISP or broadband connection, because it always runs through my router.

# Jerry Pisk said on July 19, 2004 11:05 AM:

Well, the nice thing about putting the connection on each computer is that with real ISPs that give you multiple IP addresses (Earthlink lets you use three) you don't need to NAT anything, as you do with an external router. You just plug the modem to a hub/switch and each computer makes its own connection.

# John Tobler said on July 20, 2004 04:08 PM:

The point of this post is to advise other SBC DSL customers who may be concerned about spyware/adware on their machines that SBC says they use cfd.exe for network management only and that it *not* being used for advertising purposes.

# Boyd Bingham said on August 1, 2004 01:53 PM:

Except I found it on a computer with a cable modem from Comcast. No DSL in sight. I think that it might, for sure, be spyware.

# John Tobler said on August 1, 2004 03:02 PM:

Boyd, it may be used for the same purposes as with SBC. Cable modem must also negotiate network protocols and network contacts. From what I understand, not just SBC but a number of other DSL and cable modem vendors use or used cfd.exe to manage such network negotiations. This probably has more to do with TCP/IP communications among the various machines involved in the vendor's service network than anything else. When using these services, you usually do not have a static IP address and most of your communications settings must be retrieved from the server and configured on your local machine. I think cfd.exe is used to facilitate this process.

# Alan Tidswell said on April 7, 2008 07:10 PM:

it has the same uses/purposes as with SBC. Cable modem must also negotiate network protocols and network contacts. as was mentioned, with TCP/IP communications among the various machines involved in the vendor's service network than anything else. When using these services, you usually do not have a static IP address and most of your communications settings must be retrieved from the server and configured on your local machine.

# Ray Hewitt said on April 11, 2008 02:47 PM:

Just got a Malware Rootkit attack on the CFD.exe file used by ATT.  Called customer support.  They wanted me to Pay $$$ to get it removed.  It is THEIR software that THEY put on my computer for THEIR convenience and THEY want me to pay THEM.

# Michael O'Keefe said on April 16, 2008 08:47 PM:

According to this site which has a thorough list of all those annoying programs running which you have no idea what they do - unless you dig into the doc -  it is indeed ad/ware spyware.

www.answersthatwork.com/.../tasklist_b.htm

So SBC says it ain't?  What did you expect:  "yes we put spyware on there, you should remove it"?  Isn't that a bit naive?

# suitesports.com said on January 19, 2010 08:17 PM:

it's not spam, but it is completely unnecessary

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