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Ask Toolbar Now Considered Malware By Microsoft
AmiMoJo writes: Last month Microsoft changed its policy on protecting search settings to include any software that attempts to hijack searches as malware. As a result, this month the Ask Toolbar, which most people will probably recognize as being unwanted crapware bundled with Java, was marked as malware and will now be removed by Microsoft's security software built in to Windows 7 and above.
What got them in the end was that they screwed with the user's search settings. Toolbars are a supported feature of Internet Explorer, but apps are not supposed to screw up search settings in the registry.
Doing so generates warning prompts on Windows, but because the user was already clicking through those to install Java they probably didn't notice an extra one for Ask.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Great, but how about marking as malware every bundled software that come with an installer? It doesn't seem complicated to me, it I install SomeProgram.exe then any other software unrelated to SomeProgram.exe should be marked as malware and removed.
I think if you do it right you're correct. There could be a legitimate case of one program relying on another that this would screw up.
Pop up message. I see you just installed someprogram.exe at the same time weirdprogram.exe also installed. Do you want to keep weirdprogram?
The monthly MSRT is like the McAfee "Stinger" tool. It's a one-shot, foreground-only malware removal tool that gets replaced with an entirely new copy of the program every so often.
MSRT just runs automatically as part of Windows Update. Stinger requires you to go download it and run it manually.
Also, MSRT has undocumented API access beyond anyone else's capabilities, and a short enough support window to make it worthwhile to use undocumented API's. It wouldn't surprise me to know that MSRT does all kinds of low-level "dirty tricks" to get rid of any identified threats, given that WU virtually guarantees it to run with a reboot. The entire MSRT concept is probably the strongest position for a malware removal tool to be in. Malware would have to outright block WU to keep its foothold truly safe, and that's going to raise some alarm bells to just about everyone. And never discount the possibility of a WU dead-man's-switch. Microsoft actually has the capability to make Windows cripple itself (probably into Safe Mode) if it doesn't get malware checks of some sort on a regular basis. Why they don't just throw down and use that capability is the only remaining question. Probably because it would piss off the vocal fringe users and the anti-Microsoft hate-squad that think there's some conspiracy to spy on their porn browsing habits or some stupid thing.
What is the smallest browser space you have ever seen remaining? Once at a friends house I asked to use the internet and half the screen vertically plus around 1/10 horizontally was taken up by various "toolbars". I'd never even seen a horizontal one before that day.
I experience that with my wife. She's got a reasonably nice desktop for doing what she does (nothing important) but complains it runs slow. It was screaming fast once upon a time, so I go and run and rerun all the anti-virus software and malware removers, remove have the extensions that have installed themselves, reboot a few times in the process, and it's screaming fast again. The most toolbars I've counted was at least 6, and the search is almost always stuck on something undesirable.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
This is 2015. You don't need toolbars to do all that. Simply use Chrome and stay logged into your GMail, Hotmail, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
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I would tweak what you said to: "Google is mind bogglingly popular because its search results USED TO BE not dictated by short-sighted bean counters, and then market inertia now that they are".
I switched away from Google about a year ago because I was finally fed up with lousy result quality. My specific complaint is that Google ended its long-ago policy that every result contains every search term exactly as given. Wow, that was useful, but now Google just tries to guess what you want. That's nice and all, but if you think I'm a dumb user, then show me results for what I actually searched for and then make a suggestion about a search you think would be better. But just straight up giving me results that I didn't search for? No thanks, I switched.
I'm hoping they will automatically uninstall Chrome as well, since it somehow manages to reinstall itself surreptitiously so often. So many third party programs will install it during an update if you're not paying attention to which boxes to uncheck; and I know every time I go visit my mother she'll be asking about what this Chrome thing is and how to get rid of it. Most often it's the anti-malware software that puts that shit there, which is ironic since I consider anything being installed without my explicit permission to be malware. It should get rid of googlebar or whatever that's called, and all other opt-out software.