Salon's informative article on "parasite software" details the controversy over popular free applications like KaZaA being bundled with shadowy background plug-in apps (Webhancer, Cydoor, etc.) to help pay the bills. Some decry these plug-ins as "spyware" while others shrug and say "they gotta make money somehow."

Naider [of WhenU.com] figures that the move toward plug-ins shows that the Net is finally growing up. "The Internet is the only place in history where great stuff was given away for free," he says. "What's happening now is that the Net is returning to a model where good products -- content or software -- have a price. If the price isn't in money, then the price comes in the form of bundled software."