Beware the Ask toolbar; it's as bad as having a virus
May 25th 2011 22:03
Last night I installed some new software. It was late at night and I wasn't paying much attention, so I didn't notice when the Ask toolbar was installed along with the software.
I noticed it made itself right home, changing my default search engine and home page without so much as a please or thank you afterwards. Like any unwanted house guest, it turned out to be quite difficult to remove.
I tried the uninstaller first and it told me to close Firefox first, fair enough. I closed it. Then it told me to close Internet Explorer. That proved to be a bit more difficult as I didn't have it open. It gave me the option to click ok when I had done this, so I clicked ok. The same box opened, again asking me to close IE. So we played the click the box game a few times and I finally gave up and hit cancel.
Hmmm, maybe something is stored in memory that it's conflicting with I think to myself. I reboot the computer and I still have the same problem. Next I tried to uninstall through the control panel. Again it asked me to close programs which weren't open and hadn't been used in quite a few months.
Now I'm starting to think this must be a virus....time to do a scan. Nothing found so I reboot again, and again I try the uninstall. This time it works for Firefox, but opens IE on it's own...and there's that damn Ask toolbar again.
I've had viruses that were easier to get rid of.
I noticed it made itself right home, changing my default search engine and home page without so much as a please or thank you afterwards. Like any unwanted house guest, it turned out to be quite difficult to remove.
I tried the uninstaller first and it told me to close Firefox first, fair enough. I closed it. Then it told me to close Internet Explorer. That proved to be a bit more difficult as I didn't have it open. It gave me the option to click ok when I had done this, so I clicked ok. The same box opened, again asking me to close IE. So we played the click the box game a few times and I finally gave up and hit cancel.
Hmmm, maybe something is stored in memory that it's conflicting with I think to myself. I reboot the computer and I still have the same problem. Next I tried to uninstall through the control panel. Again it asked me to close programs which weren't open and hadn't been used in quite a few months.
Now I'm starting to think this must be a virus....time to do a scan. Nothing found so I reboot again, and again I try the uninstall. This time it works for Firefox, but opens IE on it's own...and there's that damn Ask toolbar again.
I've had viruses that were easier to get rid of.
| 29 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
