LGR Tech Tales - BonziBuddy

I used to make hi say swear words! Lolz 12 year old me was easily amused!

floverSaeu09

<a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-1yzoiUIGGs" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-1yzoiUIGGs</a>

I was always more of "download every IE 6 toolbar" kid, rather than a Bonzi kid.

Antonio Lyon

Looks like Windows CeMENT

Rick Green

I can't figure it out definitively: were you using Windows Me or Windows 2000 when you recorded this video?

Chris Rogers

I was on the unfortunate Tech Support end of people removing this crap from peope's PCs around that time. It truly was a nightmare to get rid of.

Robert Butler

Oh wow I remember this definitely even though I was young.

expand dong

OMg, I remember him! He used to sing 'Daisy, Daisy' ahahha I made him say swear words lolz

floverSaeu09

He did a video on PC DRM schemes which included the whole quartet of disc-based schemes. (Safedisc, SecuROM, StarForces, and TAGES)

SolarstrikeVG

Oh my God, I know exactly where that building is on Broad street! I live in SLO county. We may have blessed the world with Jamba Juice, but we also cursed it with BonziBUDDY!

For some reason when I hear Bonzi Buddy... I think of «Hacking with Ramzi». 🤪 Let’s find some WarEZ! Peace to the brokencrew. You all leet! 😎 <a href="https://youtu.be/bAQqrnX7BsM" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/bAQqrnX7BsM</a>

Anders Enger Jensen

When this video goes live, expect the comments section to be filled with 'expand dong'. EDIT: CLINT, HAVE YOU BEEN DOWNLOADING BOOBS AGAIN?!

Tim

I was smart enough to never download BonziBuddy onto my PC. Knowing that it was spyware, I found an alternative called CyberBuddy. Shockingly enough, the website is actually still up. I wonder if it would work on Windows 10...

pcwzrd13

Oh, my lordy lord, I had forgotten all about this little guy! Thank you!

Alexandra Marie

Ugh.... It's strange to say I remember a time in the early days of the internet where we had no spam and no spyware. Or at least, it was so little that most people would never encounter it. That seemed to all end around 1996 or so and the spam started flooding in, along with the malware. And while people tend to hate things like Apple's closed in little garden, it certainly has benefits since the average consumer is not savvy enough to know what it safe and not safe to install.

The 8-Bit Guy

Just got home after work.. and WhooHoo!!! TechTales Baby!

Bonzibuddy reminds me of downloading "abandonware" from Underdogs on my ISDN line at the turn of the century. There must have been 3 banners and popups on every page for the thing.

Aleksander

I never heard of this particular software, but it sounds just the piece of crap you'd expect to find on a friends or relatives machine which stopped working properly "for no reason". Some people are just better of with iOS or similar restrictive operating systems where it's much harder to screw up like this.

What the hell is this? gues i better watch, normally i know a chunk of a tech tale before watching,

I never even heard of Bonzi Buddy for whatever reason, which I found rather surprising, since back then I was obsessed with Microsoft Agent and its ilk. I guess there's the possibility of my brain erasing all memory of it, but that's a bit of a scary thought. What ELSE have I forgotten?

Pablo Rodriguez

Ba-dum tss!

Pablo Rodriguez

I know the name, but never really felt like wanting to install the darn thing, which seemed like the right move after all. Kind of discouraging to see that the authors managed to fail upwards too, I guess it shows how shrewd they were after all with it ;)

Rob Caporetto

Can we get an episode on Starforce? Please make an episode on Starforce. That fucker killed 2 of my PCs.

Busterdrag

I literally have no memory of this, but then again I was a Mac user by this point in history. Either way, sounds like it was a real Bonzi scheme...

Mighty Jabba's Collection

For some reason Bonzi Buddy completely passed me by and I don't even remember its existence, which is kind of incredible. Either that or I just didn't fall for it cause my dad was thankfully a smart guy and never installed that crap.

Alyxx the Rat

"Sponsored by Bonzi Buddy's corpse" - My new death metal band name

Carey Brown

I just had flashbacks to the early 2000s, when I earned money on the side fixing people's computers. The most common complaint was that "it was too slow," usually caused by crapware like Bonzi Buddy that hitched a ride along with whatever file sharing program their kids/grandchildren had installed. *shudders*

Bryan McIntosh

A personal assistant that collects a lot of data about you and possibly uses it for shady practices, that sure sounds familiar, mhhhmm, hey Alexa, who does that sound like?

Zachary Outen

No comment. Well, actually, one comment: This not only satisfies your more mainstream user base, but is sure to get a spike in subscriptions and watch time. Okay, two comments: We still love you :-)

Jim Leonard

The only desktop 'pet' I ever had was esheep.exe, which I still have in my archives and play with from time to time. He was just so damn cute.

So the creators of Bonzi Buddy are not only alive an well, but now have MS as one of their business partners. That explains part of Microsoft's strange behavior in recent years :0 I for one never installed MS Agent or any of the later copycats, including Bonzy Buddy. I also disabled the ones that came with Windows and Office, that way I never had to deal with Rover or Clippit. I did try to help uninstall Bonzy Buddy at times, but it was such a pain. I'm glad I never fell for the allure this kind of software seemed to have on others.

This reminds me of the months I spent on dialup hunting down as many of the ms agents and voices as I could, I actually used (I think it was called) text aloud or something to read me ebooks as I slept, drove my parents crazy 3am some weird voice echoing from my bedroom.

Not nearly as cool as Microsoft Bob! That was something I'd almost consider using on a home machine. My Macbook can be so impersonal.

JennaKay

I sent someone a BonziBUDDY gif on Facebook the other day. Cool story, right?

Peter Metzger

{insert Vinesauce comment number #2,147,483,647}

SolarstrikeVG

My mom installed Bonzi Buddy on our shared computer. I had my own user profile, but it still bled over onto my desktop. Coincidentally, we always had a lot of viruses and malware on that machine. I pretty much had to reinstall Windows every six months.

Steve Lovelace

It was one of those things you installed that looked like fun, but ended up having limited appeal. The heady days of the net when everything seemed new and exciting.

Gary Leigh

I am so down for Peedy being my persona.

LGR

1:39: read that as "I am your Persona". So when and how do I get to summon my inner goofy parrot?

Curus Keel

I think I had this installed at one point, years and years ago. Goddamn gorilla face.

Curus Keel

They certainly did their share of questionable things in a short amount of time

LGR

LUCKY

LGR

Lucky

LGR

No? I don't think I've ever even mentioned it before

LGR

Considering the odd fan following of this, that doesn't surprise me

LGR

Ah Bonzi Softwhere, what a shower of bastards.

Nicholas Wilson

Wait what? I FORGOT ABOUT THIS!!!

Touya Chikage

Holy Moses I forgot this existed.

Hold on, didn't you release this a few months back?

Ian Guebert

A coworker said when he worked on the help desk a user actually requested bonzai buddy be installed

Flushing Noodle

Lol nice

Flushing Noodle