No More Browser Toolbars!
By Wayne Maruna
If you asked me to show you what a toolbar was thirty years ago, I’d have taken you to my garage. Now, I would take you to my computer. Webopedia.com has a good definition of a toolbar:
A series of selectable buttons in a GUI (graphical user interface) that give the user an easy way to select desktop, application, or Web browser functions. Toolbars are typically displayed as either a horizontal row or a vertical column around the edges of the GUI where they are visible while the application is in use. Most applications use toolbars as they give the user another option aside from pull-down menus.
Nearly every application uses toolbars. In Microsoft Word, for example, the area at the top of the screen which shows clickable options for fonts, margins, and alignment consists of a collection of toolbars. Application toolbars are not only beneficial, they are necessary.
Where toolbars can create problems is in web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.) The stock toolbars that come with the browsers are fine. It’s the third-party toolbars that cause the issues. When I get calls from people who tell me their Internet Explorer (IE) reports problems and constantly wants to shut down, nine times out of ten I can fix the problem by resetting IE back to its default state. This is done by clicking on ‘Tools’ in its stock Menu toolbar, then on ‘Internet Options’, then ‘Advanced’, then on the ‘Reset’ button, and in the next windows click on ‘Reset’ again. Restarting IE will present the same choices that had to be answered when the browser was last updated. I usually choose to decline just about everything except for Smart Screen Filters and Compatibility Mode. That reset process clears IE of all its third party toolbars save for a handful of rogue entries.
I can almost assure you that if I were to go into nearly any home and start up the owner’s copy of IE, I would find one or more third-party toolbar. What do I mean by third party toolbar? It might be any of several, but the most common are the Google toolbar, the Yahoo toolbar, AVG Secure Search, Good Search, McAfee toolbar, the ubiquitous Ask toolbar, or the dreaded Babylon toolbar. And this is just the short list. These toolbars are for the most part unnecessary. Any benefit derived from them mainly goes to the company providing the toolbar, because they get to share in the advertising revenue exchanged as a result of any clicked-through search. While the following oddly-named link is a year old, it provides some excellent insight into why Google is Firefox’s default search engine, and also why Google developed its own Google Chrome browser. As always, it’s all about the Benjamins.
http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/mozilla-search-showdown
How do these third party toolbars get onto your computer? It’s most often a combination of trickery, haste, and that person staring back at you in the mirror. Most of those ‘free’ programs and non-Microsoft updates that you download and apply commonly come with what one of my clients appropriately called ‘hitch hikers’. You download an update from Adobe for their Flash player or their Acrobat Reader. As part of the download acceptance, you click OK on a page that has an option checked by default to download one of those many toolbars mentioned above. The trickery part is where they check off the item by default. The haste part is where you don’t bother to read the acceptance verbiage and just click OK to start the download instead of first un-checking the hitch hiker option.
Adobe’s not the only company that tacks on hitch hikers to its downloads. Many other perfectly good free programs do the same. It’s part of how they can afford to provide software for free. Foxit Reader, which I prefer to Adobe Acrobat Reader, has a screen where you have to uncheck in three places to prevent the Ask toolbar from downloading and making Ask.com your new home page. CutePDF writer does similar things. So do Java upgrades. File this lesson under “No such thing as a free lunch.”
As Rick Broida of PC World points out, these add-on toolbars can slow down your browser, take up valuable screen real estate, and even increase the risk of virus and spyware infections. That said, some toolbars may be the result of spyware, so it’s not always the user’s fault.
The more reputable companies allow their toolbars to be easily removed with Control Panel’s Add/Remove utility. But some toolbars, like the Babylon toolbar, just refuse to go away. You have to dig deep into browser settings and often venture into the Windows Registry itself to really purge the rascals. Unless you are comfortable performing such tasks, they probably should be left to an expert.
The take-away here is to be very deliberate and cautious with any download installation. Take the time to read and understand what you are agreeing to. You don’t need to read through the entirety of every EULA (End User License Agreement), but be aware of any checked-off options. And if you see any unexpected new desktop icons, browser toolbars, or if your home page suddenly changes, stop right there and figure out as best you can what just happened, because you might unwarily have allowed it.
