BonziBuddy

BonziBuddy

BonziBuddy promotional logo
Developer(s)	Bonzi Software
Development status	Discontinued
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Type	Adware, spyware
License	Custom EULA

BonziBuddy, stylized as BonziBUDDY, is a desktop assistant program distributed by Bonzi Software between 1999 and 2004. The software provides an on-screen software agent designed to help users surf the Internet by using Microsoft Agent technology. In 1999, the software used a green parrot called "Peedy" licensed from Microsoft, and in later versions, a purple gorilla named Bonzi. Upon a user's choice the on-screen agent would share jokes and facts, manage downloading using its download manager, sing songs and other functions.

The software uses Microsoft Agent technology similar to Office Assistant, and originally sports Peedy, a green parrot and one of the characters available with Microsoft Agent. Later versions of BonziBuddy feature its own character: Bonzi, the purple gorilla. The program also used a text to speech voice to interact with the user. The voice was called Sydney and taken from an old Lernout & Hauspie Microsoft Speech API 4.0 package. It is often referred to in some software as Adult Male #2.

Some versions of the software were described as spyware. Bonzi's homepage remained open after the discontinuation of BonziBuddy and the website disappeared at the end of 2008.

In April 2007, PCWorld readers voted BonziBuddy 6th on a list of "The 20 Most Annoying Tech Products". One reader was quoted as criticizing the program because it "kept popping up and obscuring things you needed to see."

One of the last newspapers to write about BonziBuddy while it was still in distribution described it as spyware and a "scourge of the Internet". Another article found in 2006 on the BusinessWeek website described BonziBuddy as "the unbelievably annoying spyware trojan horse".

A number of sources identify BonziBuddy as spyware, a claim the company disputes. In 2002 an article in Consumer Reports Web Watch labelled BonziBuddy as spyware, stating that it contains a backdoor trojan in that it collects information from users. Among the activities the program is said to engage in include constantly resetting the user's web browser homepage to bonzi.com without the user's permission, prompting and tracking various information about the user, and serving advertisements.