BonziBuddy (officially distributed as BonziBUDDY) was a piece of adware, though claims of spyware capabilities have been made against it.[1] It was distributed by Bonzi Software between 1999 and 2004.
It gained access to users systems by including and on-screen "intelligent" software agent which supposedly would help a user 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, Bonzi Software made their own fictional character, a purple gorilla. The on-screen agent would tell jokes, facts, manage downloading using its download manager, sing songs and other functions. The user would command the character by right clicking on the character's stomach on which a menu would appear. Bonzi's homepage remained open after the discontinuation of BonziBuddy and the website disappeared at the end of 2008.
