Ebuddy is not MY buddy!!

A few months back, I was lucky enough to find a contract cheap enough to allow me to have an up to date phone after having several years of second hand functional, yet unexciting phones. After some advice from a couple of techy friends, I opted for the HTC Hero, which I have not been disappointed by. It is a great phone.

I was advised that "ebuddy" was the best instant messaging app to use for Android

phones, so I quickly indulged in a free download from Android Market. At first, I was happy with the app, it worked well and was easy to use. Something important when you have your first smartphone in my opinion.

However, since I rarely use IM on my phone, I expected ebuddy to take a back seat to the "Emesene" messenger I use on my Ubuntu laptop, though since having ebuddy on my phone, every time I sign into emesene, I am confronted by their branded personal message....

"on my mobile with eBuddy www.ebuddy.com/android".

While using ebuddy on my phone, I am not bothered what adverts they decide to put in my status, but when I am using my laptop daily and am forced to have to change it every single time i sign on, I am not so happy. In fact, that is an understatement, it has been going on so long now with apparently no way of removing the ebuddy virus, I am now pretty angry with ebuddy. What's more is, I know I am not the only one this happens to, from trawling through google searches and android forums, many people seem to be having this issue yet the best advice offered anywhere is "the app works well on your phone, so this is a small price to pay". Obviously missing the point, and since I don't even have the app on my phone anymore, it's even less a price worth paying.

No other app tries to infest other parts of my life, so why does ebuddy insist upon doing so?! I have emailed them and requested to know why I cannot get rid of this, but thus far, I have received no reply. There isn't even an option via the app, or their web page for the deletion of your "ebuddy id", which further annoyed me as it is the only thing I can see left which may prevent ebuddy from taking over my IM any longer!