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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.
will java be also removed since it's bundeled with ask toolbar?
Be or ben't
I feel there's a word that's appropriate... hypo... hypocr.... oh, MS Word told me the word I'm looking for is "hyper". Yep, what a bunch of hypers.
Anything that installs a toolbar in your browser is malware.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
what took them so long?
1,753,378 to go.
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.
Elok
I always remember this image of IE7 stuffed with toolbars. A similar test was done on Windows XP.
In the case of IE7, this was done as a test to see if the reset function would work correctly. It did.
loading all this crap was tolerated by Microsoft because it was the main impetus for people buying new PCs.
Now that Android is taking over the personal OS landscape, and PC sales are dropping, MS doesn't gain as much as they used to, and now actually feels the pain from allowing this to happen, they decide to remove them.
at this pace, within a couple years I'll like Microsoft more than I like Mozilla.
Good. It is malware. I can't think of a browser toolbar that I wouldn't consider to be malware to some degree. Has anyone in the past 5 years intentionally installed one of those things? My impression is that they only ever get installed because someone wasn't paying enough attention when they installed some crappy piece of software, and it was bundled in.
I've never seen the Bing toolbar bundled with anything (including any Microsoft products). As far as I can tell, it's a 100% opt-in manual download.
Popisms.com - Connecting pop culture
Its bundled with skype.
Have you ever looked at the list? There are always a few outliers but they all do roughly the same things. Kaspersky and bitdefender typically seem a little bit ahead, but the MS stuff is generally in the next tier with guys like panda, fortinet, avira, etc. and ahead of the norton and avg
They all let you override individual locations, even if it is somewhat of a pain on occasion.
So to answer your question, it is free, easy to get, and is as good as many of the alternatives...with that said I use personally use bitdefender right now while at work we are stuck with a corporate deal with symantec, in case you were wondering norton blows.
The main issue *I* have with it, is that when I disable it - You know... I like to disable stuff I don't use - it refuses to stay disabled.
There are schedules, and protection tasks, and all sorts of other asshatery that will keep that process running. That's what you would normally call malware - something that refuses to stay disabled or removed.
For me, it came with both Skype and DirectX. Few other things I can't remember before that. A quick Google search reveals that it comes with a lot of things.
The Bing toolbar doesn't change search settings without prompting, and is not removed. Same with the Google toolbar.
All the "negative checkoff" (click NOT to install) and all the (CNET downloads.com e.g.) sites where banner ads mislead to click on them rather than the download file button you are looking for should be treated as malware, starting a long time ago.
Gently reply
All toolbars are malware, what is the big deal. I took user install rights away, because of toolbars. They were just causing to many problems.
Everybody I know has multiple toolbars on their internet. None of them has problems with malware. I even specifically asked the ask toolbar whether or not it was malware, and it said (and I quote) "that's ridiculous".
Annoying Oracle can't be a bad thing. I can't believe they bundle it when Java is needed for so many enterprise apps - surely the reputational damage is worth more than the revenue from bundling the toolbar? It makes them look cheap and certainly not enterprise.
So yeah, good for Microsoft. They're doing some good things these days. Perhaps a bit like IBM when they were knocked off of their perch, MS now realise they need to actually produce good products and play nicer with customers.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
No, because the restricted behavior isn't bundling, it's changing search providers without prompting.
It's mentioned in the article in about every single sentence, so I can see how you missed it.
YOUR INTRUSIVE WINDOWS UPDATE!
The latest batch of updates magically moved Microsoft Office Upload Center startup configuration from msconfig/regedit entries TO THE DAMN TASK SCHEDULER! WTF?!
</rant>
I praise them for the rare use case where they use this intrusive omni-present program for good. This is four times, that I remember, in the last year that they have done a sweeping removal of malware with Windows Update
Ask finally got what it's been asking for all along
Next up - McAffee.
Then Java, then Ffflash. I can see we're gunna need a longer wall. And maybe a conveyor belt.
He's not talking about Microsoft's antivirus/antimalware, he's talking about the 'malicious software removal' that's part of Windows Update even if you don't have MS's AV installed.
It removes a very few specific things that can be difficult to get rid of.
why anyone would want a toolbar to begin with. It's obviously "malware" in so many ways.
I'm seriously disappointed in the browser area as well. Why can't we have a browser that does ONE THING WELL: browse the Web. I don't care for anything extraneous to surfing. About the only thing I might want besides supporting protocol standards is tabs and a bookmark feature. Nothing else. I don't want or need the dancing baloney. I don't understand the need for programs to do everything for users. I guess growing up on the command line has given me a certain outlook as to how programs should do one thing well.
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.
if you want to make sure Aunt Ethel doesn't install this in the first place.
Is the conduit bing browser hijack also considered malware? Cause it bloody well should.
I remember some goofy ways installers would try to trick users into toolbars, including double negatives: "Do you not want to not install the Foo toolbar?" or "Skip the bypass of the Foo toolbar installation?".
Table-ized A.I.
Not really - it's easy enough to change the default search on IE to google from bing, and it's easy enough to change the default search on google Chrome to bing (or even ask, if that's what you really want). There's no hypocrisy there in saying ask is malware - it most definitely is.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The Skype installer and updater bundles software that sets and attempts to maintain homepages and default search to Bing.
I've seen people install the Google toolbar because they thought that was how to use Google... I've removed it a lot as well.
I gotta say. It's about time. I've been stripping that piece-of-crap browser hijacker out of just about every machine I see. Oracle should be horsewhipped for partnering with those Ask Toolbar assholes.
+3 imaginary votes in the category "burned"
If Oracle removes Ask toolbar from Java Installer, can SourceForge provide us one version with Ask added back?
Does Oracle prevent or allow the ask.com toolbar to be installed when the Java runtime is installed? Does their policies allow any of the bundled software to be installed?
Do Oracle contractors install bundled software onto customer's computers or do they ask the customer as part of the contract if it will be installed?
I wonder what it is like among the companies that bundle software and use their own software if they have policies in place to prevent the bundled software from being installed?
other than looking for a better husband.
This is not malware at all. No ones being fooled into installing it. You have to read and if you don't read that's YOUR fault. I'm pretty sure MS going to get sued and MS will loose because its not tricking anyone into installing it and if you don't read the agreement that again is YOUR faults. Ask did install this toolbar without permission in the past and they get sued for it too so im not sticking up that. Is Ask is a good trustworthy business? No they are not, that is a fact. but in this case Ask isn't doing anything wrong.
Please show me how this install is being 1. forced install 2. uses trickery to get installed? 3. cant be uninstalled
Jack of all trades,master of none
They must no have paid up in time.
I'd expect by now that browser plug-ins have replaced anything a toolbar could offer.
And make sure it does not install itself in the first place without your explicit opt-in permission. Otherwise I consider it malware.
No matter who prevails, you still have to live with a rabid victor.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
HP printer drivers are amazing, in the sense that 100+ meg of wares is installed when it only takes tens of kilobytes to actually drive a fucking printer. I mean Jesus Quincy Christ impaled on a stick with roman military nails, what in the hell?
It looks like this only applies to older versions of the Ask toolbar. According to the link in the post, "The latest version of this application is not detected by our objective criteria, and is not considered unwanted software."
I do hope that their "objective criteria" will help to keep the Ask toolbar from being quite as annoying as it was, however.
in case you were wondering norton blows
Well it used to suck, so there's been a 180 degree turnaround.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This pleases me greatly. I'm sick of having to uninstall that crap from all my workstations.
Frosty Piss has been a thing for a very, very long time.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I've HATED Ask for years and never gotten the answers it promises, so thanks Microsoft.
If this becomes common practice among all of the malware checkers, then I can retire my PowerShell script that remotely uninstalls this bastard software.
Bearded Dragon