Where Did THAT Come From: Understanding Toolbar Downloads
October 17, 2008 by Antivirus Ware.comYou simply have to have that 3D picture with the moving waterfalls on your desktop as your background or screensaver. So you click on the download button, hastily check the box to accept the terms of use and anxiously await the download to complete. It doesn’t take long and soon enough, you’re watching waterfalls whenever you like. Cool but then you open a new browser and it seems a bit smaller. What’s going on here? What happened to your browser? You didn’t install a new toolbar…or did you?
If you find a new toolbar on your browser and are positive you didn’t install it yourself, before you fly over to the website to fire off an angry email, you should know that many toolbars function as add-ons when you download items like screensavers, emoticons (smiley faces that may be animated and have sound with them). Often, neatly written into the terms of use is an agreement to not only allow the toolbar to be installed but to change it to your default toolbar.
The simplest way to avoid toolbar add-ons is to thoroughly check the terms of use for any download such as the ones mentioned above. Make sure that you do not have to accept the toolbar because they are often a challenge to uninstall. The good news is that discovering an unwanted toolbar is not the end of the world. Simply right mouse click the toolbar, remove the check next to it and the toolbar will be hidden.
