Showing posts with label Toolbar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toolbar. Show all posts

Friday, January 17, 2014

Sneaky Scumbag Adware vendors

Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled:
updates:http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/malware-vendors-buy-chrome-extensions-to-send-adware-filled-updates/

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

IAC\ASK Unwanted ineffective(except to make them $$$)Toolbar Installation Practices

From Ben Edleman, a full accounting of what IAC\ASK does to get a toolbar installed. Any toolbar they can make up. Some are a real stretch and plenty of them target kids

And goodness knows the results of having any of these is actually a lesser quality of search results, not to mention all kinds of intrusive system changes, all designed to make IAC\ASK a ton of money

IAC Toolbars and Traffic Arbitrage in 2013

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

WOT The F........

So there you are, a security vendor who uses some third party sources to supply security advice\ratings to be included in your product. Now, one would think that you would want said third party vendors to have something to offer which would aid in your product to be the best it can be.

Cost effectiveness can be one item, tho this is not always the case nor need it be.
Dependability comes to mind. What good is something if you can't rely on it? Not much.

Then there is always a matter of reliability, which when it comes right down to it, trumps the other two. If you can't trust them or the service\product they offer to be reliable, what's the point? In the end the one that suffers most is the end user.

Imagine now if you read the following, about a third party vendor, or rather all third party vendors who supply services to another product:
We don't consider our automated sources equally reliable

WOT Forums

If you don't trust them, why the hell are you using them? What sort of business uses resources\products\services it does not trust?Can you imagine if McAfee, Symantec or any other security vendor said that about someone who provided them such service?

Symantec just bought PCTools, do you think they trust them enough to improve the reliability of their product line? Ya, you betcha.

Did AVG trust Exploit Labs when they bought them out, with their LinkScanner tech? I'm sure they did.

Oh sure, maybe in this case there is no money exchanging hands, but to me at least, trust has a price on it that can't be calculated.

So, someone tell me how any security minded person can recommend a security tool from a company who gets something that is aided by third party vendors, when said security vendor does not trust the service it is geting from that third party?

Full thread:
Web Of Trust: How Trustful Is It?

Sunday, June 29, 2008

AVG Linkscanner Toolbar Removal, made Easy!

Claus Valca over at Grand stream Dreams has gotten a tip from one of his readers that with the latest update to AVG the Linkscanner option is now much easier to remove from previous versions. Even tho they still say they won't be changing default install.

Good to see how much value they put into user feedback. As long as it don't affect the bottom line, they can make changes. I'm not surprised.

Anyway, Claus has a smokin' detailed tutorial on how to get the Linkscanner toolbar removed and credit him for the length of time he obviously spent doing it. It rocks!

AVG Linkscanner Toolbar Removal Tutorial

Saturday, April 26, 2008

AVG 8 Free Review & Toolbar Removal Tips

Excellent review of AVG 8 and more importantly, IMHO, instructions to remove the forced install LinkScanner toolbar and other annoyances. I'm not even linking to the forum for this, just directly to the blog I found it on.
AVG 8 Free Edition Review & Toolbar Removal Tips

Monday, December 17, 2007

Zone Alarm & Ask.com Toolbar, Money For Them, Annoyance For You

Well Zone Alarm has decided to try and make a few buck off unknowing users.

Following Webroot's lead, they've added a 'spyblocker'\toolbar. Of course the install option is already ticked for your convenience, isn't that nice of them? Ummm...no thanks ZA.

And by pre-ticking that lil box, it almost guarantees many installs, thereby leading to mucho money for ZA and of course Ask.com a well. Vent your
anger here....