Is your toolbar trying to kill your computer?
@beautyqueen26 (16030)
United States
July 29, 2007 12:02pm CST
Today I was surfing around and saw an advertisement for a free toolbar download. The toolbar included some pretty cool features like free online radio stations, free games, free community message board and more. They claimed that the toolbar included no spyware or pop-ups. And, while I was tempted to download it, I was also a little hesitant.
The last time I downloaded a toolbar it completely hijacked my computer system and caused many malfunctions. Perhaps it was just faulty programming or improper installation. But, I think it was a trojan. Either way, it nearly crippled my computer. Once I deleted the toolbar my computer worked fine.
I've had no problems with some of my other toolbars. So, I was wondering if perhaps this could be an isolated incident. Or, maybe something more sinister! Do you think it's possible for someone to download a trojan spyware program or other malicious software to your computer during a toolbar installation?
1 person likes this
4 responses
@santuccie (3384)
• United States
30 Jul 07
Not only is it possible for adware-packed toolbar downloads to exist, it's a reality. Here's an easy way for you to check the safety of a tempting download: http://www.virustotal.com/
While it's theoretically possible for a malware/grayware to slip past all 32 of these scanners undetected, be assured it is HIGHLY unlikely. Hope this helps!
1 person likes this
@beautyqueen26 (16030)
• United States
30 Jul 07
That's phenomenal! Thanks, I'll try it out.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
29 Jul 07
I have never liked the downloadable toolbars from any source. The added features that they offer are usually geared to a level of promotion to justify their existance, which is something that I do not personally approve of.
Whenever you download a plug in of any kind from the internet you are running the risk of installing something that you do not want.
1 person likes this
@Debs_place (10520)
• United States
30 Jul 07
Toolbars definitely eat into the computer resources, they track what you are doing and take up space on your browser window.
They are not needed and I won't download them, when I have in the past, it definitely slowed the computer down.
@navtech (1773)
• India
30 Jul 07
Dear beautyqueen26, I also did the same thing last year as you did . I had to change my hard disk to bring my computer in order. We have to be very careful about downloading the fancy toolbars. From the last year onwards I never did any downloading of that nature. Yours is not a isolated incident. People out there with a malicious software through which they want to give trouble to ordinary people like us.
