Case Study: How even the most experienced users can install third party crapware (like toolbars) and how to protect yourself from such offerings
August 16, 2011 29
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While I may not have as many years under my belt as other people, I consider myself to be a moderately experienced and knowledgeable techie. Yes, some people can disagree about my level of knowledge/experience, but I think we can all agree I know enough to be able to dodge some of the crapware that come with software, like third party toolbars.
Recently, FormatFactory – a name that is often appreciated on dotTech – started coming bundled with two third party toolbars, Ask.com and QuickScore toolbars. I know about these toolbars (many FormatFactory fans were quick to inform me about it) so one would think that I would easily dodge their install (i.e. Tell FormatFactory not to install them by unchecking their respective checkboxes). Well ladies and gents, the nature of how these third party software are bundled into installers make it very easy for people to be duped into installing the third party software – I am a perfect example. Yesterday I was (re)installing FormatFactory; I quickly clicked “Next” on all the installer screens totally forgetting the fact that FormatFactory will install Ask.com and QuickScore toolbars unless I tell it not to. Next thing I know, I have two new toolbars sitting in my browsers.
Of course as soon as I realized what I had done, I quickly uninstalled both toolbars (using RevoUninstaller to force uninstall Ask.com toolbar and using QuickScore’s built-in uninstaller to uninstall that one) and even restored my computer to a recent restore point to ensure the toolbars were totally gone. However, my point of this post is not to tell you about my recent experience so you can pity (or praise, depending on what you prefer) me. Rather, it is it highlight the fact that regardless of a person’s level of computer knowledge, these third party software are bundled into installers in a very clever manner; one has to be extremely careful and mindful of installers in order to avoid installing undesired third party software/allowing undesired changes to one’s computer. Of course there is a level of computer knowledge necessary to recognize a third party offer in an installer when they show up, but attentiveness is the key method to protection when it comes to crapware, not technical knowledge.
So, then, what are the takeaways from this (short) case study?
- Be sure to always carefully read all the options presented to you while installing a program. Unfortunately third-party-software-bundles are becoming more and more common (they are a way to generate revenue for developers, hence many freeware developers use them) and even your most trusted program may decide to introduce a third party toolbar/software in its installer. Be careful. Read everything, even if you think it is a legitimate option. The payoffs for the sacrifice of a few minutes of your time spent to carefully monitor an installation are instant… in the form of a crapware-free computer.
- When possible, always download software from Softpedia.com as opposed to other sources. While many other file hosting websites may check for malware in a software, Softpedia (usually) makes sure that software do not come with third party crapware also. That is not to say you shouldn’t be attentive while installing software you downloaded from Softpedia; you should always be very attentive. Rather, that means typically a download from Softpedia won’t include anything like third party toolbars. Take note that a software maybe hosted on Softpedia, the developer’s website, and Download.com, for example; the software that is hosted on Softpedia may be clean of third party bundles, but that does not necessarily mean the download from the developer’s website or Download.com are. Softpedia (usually) specifically makes developer remove third party bundles, so often other sources of download for the same software may include third party bundles while the download from Softpedia does not.
- Update: If a software is listed as “Ad-supported” on Softpedia (under “License”) then it will most likely include third-party software with it. If not, then it is probably clean.
- Download and install some sort of system monitor security software. WinPatrol is one such a system monitor (probably one of the best system monitors). In fact it was WinPatrol that alerted me to the new toolbars being installed on my computer; and I used WinPatrol to block them before I even took any of the removal steps I mentioned earlier in this post. (Note: WinPatrol only blocks/monitors Internet Explorer addons – not the addons for other browsers like Firefox. However, if a new toolbar is installed in Internet Explorer, for example, you can rest assured it will probably have tried to install itself in other browsers, such as Firefox.) To top it off, WinPatrol has a freeware version if you can’t afford the Pro version.
Good luck to everyone and hopefully we can all be vigilant and avoid such problems in the future.
Yes, Foxit Reader is another culprit. What’s more it did it (I think) from within a “check for updates” in an existing Foxit install, not a new installation.
If there was any warning, I didn’t see it.
Nice article, Avira antivirus has gone down this route with the Ask toolbar (you are given the option to postpone the toolbar installation but can’t choose to permanently avoid it). They lost my recommendation because of this (swapped to Avast).
I also use Startup Monitor. Between that and AnVir, I’ve been able to make progress with controlling my system. It requires constant attention! When a MBR virus managed a successful attack, I was almost relieved to have been forced to reinstall Windows. I learned some new techniques to ease the pain, but knew I’d get a nice new, clean install at the end of it. I now not only created a system image of the new install, but put the new Windows on a small hard drive, then cloned it to another identical small drive. No data on that drive; just system. So if I get something weird happening again, all I have to do is swap out the drives and I’m back in business. It’s a crime that we have to be so defense oriented. You’d think Microsoft would be more attentive to helping it’s more ambitious users protect themselves, but that is wishful thinking!
How humorously timed this article is:
Just yesterday, I noticed, for the first time, the Ask toolbar on my IE browser. I had no idea how it got there. My homepage also was switched to the ask.com homepage. Again, no idea how. I uninstalled and set back to my original homepage, only slightly perturbed. Still didn’t know how it had happened.
Reading today’s article, I recalled: I, too, had just installed Format Factory on that particular computer this week. Although I am fairly careful with the default check-boxes during the installation process, I assume that I had missed something and that Format Factory had “gifted me” with ask.com (and that Format Factory was fairly tricky about this; or, that it simply installed the Ask gifts without regard to user preference).
Luckily, easily repaired. But, as always with things computer, a bit scary as to what might have been.