Adware
New.net distributes NewDotNet, an Internet Explorer plugin for Windows that enables the browser to access sites that use these unofficial domain names. It is considered as adware and spyware by McAfee Site Advisor. Web of Trust has reports of malicious content on New.net. In a poll of readers of Icann Watch New.Net was considered The greatest threat to the security of the DNS as matched against other alternatives.
Several different versions of NewDotNet exist. Early versions installed themselves into the Windows directory as a DLL named "newdotnet" followed by a version number, and had no uninstall option. More recent versions create a folder in "c:\Program Files". A version introduced in 2002 (since discontinued) included a pop-up advertising component.
The program functions by inserting itself into the Winsock system, which can in some situations disrupt network connectivity. A typical symptom for dial-up systems is that the user is able to dial out normally but cannot access the Internet. Nothing about an alternative DNS root requires the installation of new software, but one possible explanation for using a browser plug in would be to avoid running public recursive resolvers. New.net also has instructions for setting up one's own recursive resolver to query new.net domains but they put these instructions in the ISP information section of their site.
Well-known and generally trusted anti-spyware programs like Ad-Aware and Spybot are usually effective at removing older versions of this software. More recent versions of NewDotNet can be uninstalled using the standard Windows "Add/Remove Programs" control panel or an uninstaller in "C:\Program Files\New.net". Manual removal, if performed incorrectly, can completely disrupt the computer's ability to access the internet. This can be fixed with an LSP Fix program.
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