If there is one thing you can be sure of when it comes to software it is that they will all have the most mind-numbing and totally useless bunch of text called the End Users License Agreement – otherwise known as an EULA – as part of the install. Generally you have to indicated that you have read the whole thing by clicking on some sort of I Agree button, link, or checkbox before you can even start the install.

The problem is that those EULAs are sneaky and on more than one occasion they have been found to contain more than one type of gotcha. With the exception of a rare breed of computer users who do indeed examine each and every EULA of every piece of software they install most of us just click on I Agree and carry on our merry way. It is only later we find out that maybe we should have read that EULA after all.

Well Javacool Software, the developers of SpywareBlaster have come to the rescue with a rather cool piece of software called EULAlyzer. The idea is that you take the EULA (copy ‘n paste) and have the software scan it and produce a report regarding the safety of the EULA

From their site:

Discover if the software you’re about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or much much more. EULAlyzer can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases.

The Benefits

• Discover potentially hidden behavior about the software you’re going to install
• Pick up on things you missed when reading license agreements
• Keep a saved database of the license agreements & documents you view
• Instant results – super-fast analysis in just a second

And with additional features like the EULA Research Center, which optionally allows users to anonymously submit license agreements they scan to help us to further improve the program, everyone can be a part of the effort to make something that used to be so tedious, so easy.

As someone always testing all kinds of software and hating the very site of EULAs I figure that it wouldn’t hurt to give the program a try. Once you install and run it this is your start up screen that you will be displayed

Now I figured what better EULA to test on the first run that the one that came with the install of EULAlyzer.

And this of course is the report that was returned after the scan.

I can’t report yet on the veracity of their reports on scanned EULAs but given the reputation of the other software written by the company I think I’ll keep the program around for awhile and see how things go. If it works out well enough I might even get the Pro version but for now the Free Version will do quite nicely (with maybe a donation to the cause).