Has anybody tried the latest free software from MacPaw, SpyBuster, that lets you know if your apps or web browsers are contacting servers in Russia or Belarus? I’m curious about any surprising discoveries, security, etc. MacPaw (a Ukranian company) explains their response to the Russian invasion on a page that also includes links to their privacy policy.
I just tried the static analysis and discovered that my PDF to OCR software Abbyy FineReader is software from a Russian company.
Should I delete FineReader? I have the stand-alone software but I know there’s also a version that come with my ScanSnap scanner.
FineReader is a handy tool for OCR…
In my opinion, if I already paid for an app from a Russian company and it doesn’t use a subscription-based payment system that would keep sending money to Russia, and most importantly doesn’t connect to any Russian servers when it’s running (SpyBuster’s Dynamic Analysis should give us this info), then I wouldn’t have a problem continuing to use it. I’ll be interested to hear other opinions.
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If you decide to switch, I’ve used OCRKit from ExactCODE (German company) for years on all the scans generated by my SnapScan scanner.
FineReader is bundled to the ScanSnap Scanner SW by Fujitsu (Japanese). Users don’t have a direct licence of FineReader and as @Nalarider said, there’s is no subscription running.
In similar context, Germany has a Federal Cyber Security Authority (called BSI) They publicly advised to stop using AntiVirus software made by Kaspersky (russian). Their servers are however in Switzerland.