CNET'S DOWNLOAD.COM ADDING TROJAN AND HIJACK SOFTWARE TO THE INSTALLER

Cnet, a subsidiary of CBS Interactive, has begun wrapping installation programs it houses in a wrapper. While Download.com's TOS allow them to do this, it appears the wrapper is also being used to install trojan and hijack software. A number of users have complained of having a tool bar installed, their search provider switched to Bing and having their homepage changed to MSN, all without explicitly asking the user.

Cnet has stated they are using the wrappers to "help the user" and give them a uniform experience.

CNET TO ACQUIRE GDGT SITE

Back in 2009 a rumor was swirling that CNET (and parent company CBS) were sniffing around gdgt, the then-brand-new community/review site/blog by Peter Rojas and Ryan Block. While CNET was considering an investment at the time, an acquisition was said not to be an option.

Oh, how time can change things. Two years later, we’re not only hearing that CNET is now in talks to acquire gdgt, but also that the deal could be announced as early as this week. The source had no information on the details. GDGT founder Ryan Block declined comment.

RUMOR: CLEARWIRE SWITCHING TO LTE FROM WiMAX

In an interview with CNET, Clearwire’s chief operating officer Erik Prusch said that the carrier may eventually switch from WiMAX to LTE. “WiMAX to date has been a very good technology choice for us,” Prusch said. “We were able to take advantage of the speed to market before LTE was even a glimmer in anyone’s eye. But we recognize the ecosystem in the U.S. will be larger for LTE than WiMAX, so we are conscious of that.” Last summer Clearwire confirmed that it would begin testing 4G LTE trials in the U.S., and it expected to demonstrate that it “[could] deliver significantly higher performance using LTE technologies than any other operator.”

It’s unclear how those tests went, but Prusch did backtrack a bit and say that a switch isn’t definite, and that Clearwire needs to keep its eye on LTE and its ecosystem before pulling the trigger and setting a definite timeline.

Last month Sprint — which owns a majority stake of Clearwire — said that it has agreed to pay the company $1 billion through 2012 for fees associated with the use of Clearwire’s 4G WiMAX network.

MAKE CALLS THRU GMAIL

Google is hooking up gmail users with the ability to make calls over a web-based VOIP client.  According to CNET the VOIP client is the reason Google bought Gizmo5 and could make life a little simpler by letting use Google Talk in our web-based gmail client to make calls.