The important part of the agreement is outlined below.

… The information which is monitored and collected includes internet usage information, basic demographic information, certain hardware, software, computer configuration and application usage information about the computer on which you install RelevantKnowledge. We may use the information that we monitor, such as name and address, to better understand your household demographics; for example, we may combine the information that you provide us with additional information from consumer data brokers and other data sources in accordance with our privacy policy. We make commercially viable efforts to automatically filter confidential personally identifiable information and to purge our databases of such information about our panelists when inadvertently collected…

The user has the option to go back, accept or decline the agreement. Back simply goes back one screen, accept will install Relevant Knowledge on the computer system while decline will not install Relevant Knowledge and exit the software installation.

Looking at the agreement it is obvious that Relevant Knowledge is collecting and monitoring information about the user, the computer system and usage. It is also clear that the collected information are combined with information from various other sources to create an extensive profile. Relevant Knowledge may also display surveys from time to time on the computer system. It is therefor clear that most anti-spyware applications and other programs that protect a computer system against malicious software consider Relevant Knowledge to be spyware.

Relevant Knowledge can be uninstalled from the Windows Control Panel. It has its own entry there. Uninstallation will not affect the software program it was installed with. Some developers, like those that develop SUMO, provide access to a lite version of their application which will install the program without the Relevant Knowledge addition.

Users who usually click-through installations should begin to pay better attentions to the dialogs presented to them to avoid installing programs like Relevant Knowledge on their computer system.

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SUMO will scan the applications listed in the Windows Start Menu by default but the user can let it scan specific drives or folders on the system and add executables manually. Users will be surprised that SUMO will recognize most of the applications that are added manually. A test with MWSnap and Newsbin Pro was successful. SUMO recognized the two applications and was able to check their version in the database.

One interesting option is to include beta versions in the update notifications which can be enabled in the program’s settings. Including beta versions raised the update count from 6 to 26 applications. Some like an update of Firefox 3.03 to Firefox 3.1 would require some research while others are no brainers.

The interesting feature is to add executables manually to SUMO. Not all executables will be recognized though because some developers do not include version information in their files. That’s however not a problem of SUMO but of all software updater.

SUMO will display the applications that need an update including the new version that is available. A click on Get Update will load a website with download links to the latest version. There is no option to download the files directly from within Sumo. The advantage is that the websites contain usually between 2-5 locations that contain the latest version of the software.

Users can propose a link on the websites, perform a Google Search and Report Errors or Beta versions. The latest version and the version of the user is shown on the page as well.

SUMO is missing a few features that would make it an universal software. An option to download all software updates automatically would be more than welcome. As would be a feature to add links to software applications manually to the software. It is possible to add applications but if SUMO does not have them in their database there is no way to update them. The only option is to click the Get Update link and propose a link.

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