Does this internet browser window look familiar to you?
If so, you may be the victim of unwanted multiple browser toolbars. These browser add-ons have become a real problem in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, much free software nowadays comes with some unwanted add-ons; in most cases a so-called browser toolbar is installed. Many toolbars can be quite annoying because they:
- Change your homepage and your search engine without you realizing it
- Track your browsing activities and searches
- Display annoying ads and manipulate search results
- Take up a lot of space inside the browser
- Are difficult or even impossible for the average user to fully uninstall
It is especially for this last reason that avast! Browser Cleanup has been developed: To help our customers identify and get rid of unwanted browser toolbars and add-ons. It is integrated in avast! 8 and is also available as a stand-alone product on various download portals for use with friends without installed avast! Now, about 20 days after release of avast! Browser Cleanup, I think it’s time for a quick review of the results.
Some statistics after 20 days of release
Shortly after release I predicted that we would end up with about 100,000 different add-ons. Unfortunately I was wrong … totally wrong! Reality shows that I underestimated the scope of the issue. Twenty days after release of Browser Cleanup, our database shows …
- More than 220,000 different browser add-ons for the three main browsers
- More than 8,000 new add-ons per day
- More than 74% of all add-ons have a bad or very bad rating from our user community
- More than one third of all toolbars in our database are from only three companies
Top 20
The following numbers are based on about 4 million users which ran avast! Browser Cleanup in the first 3 weeks after release. The top 20 add-ins with a bad or very bad user rating can be seen in the list below. A lot of users decided to remove them:
| Add-on name | Vendor | Browser |
Installed |
Uninstalled |
| Ask.com Toolbar | Ask.com | IE |
283,693 |
97,511 |
| Yahoo! Toolbar | Yahoo! Inc. | IE |
202,493 |
16,372 |
| Babylon toolbar helper | Babylon BHO | IE |
201,493 |
64,122 |
| Babylon Toolbar | Babylon Ltd. | IE |
160,804 |
48,068 |
| SweetPacks Toolbar | SweetIM Technologies Ltd. | IE |
158,576 |
47,229 |
| Delta Toolbar | delta-search.com | IE |
150,124 |
44,446 |
| Yontoo Api | Yontoo LLC | IE |
148,128 |
54,431 |
| Active Desktop Mover | ?????????? ?????????? | IE |
134,934 |
59,203 |
| Searchqu Toolbar | Visicom Media Inc. | IE |
118,372 |
33,801 |
| Web Assistant | IncrediBar | IE |
109,198 |
29,150 |
| DealPly | DealPly Technologies Ltd | IE |
108,344 |
28,773 |
| Ask.com Toolbar | Ask.com | FireFox |
101,959 |
26,640 |
| DealPly | DealPly Technologies Ltd | Chrome |
100,926 |
23,880 |
| Funmoods Toolbar | Funmoods | IE |
94,195 |
24,761 |
| AVG Security Toolbar | AVG Technologies | IE |
92,460 |
26,415 |
| delta Helper Object | delta-search.com | IE |
90,141 |
34,729 |
| Funmoods Helper Object | Funmoods BHO | IE |
84,297 |
25,094 |
| Yontoo | Yontoo LLC | FireFox |
77,671 |
24,591 |
| SweetPacks Toolbar for Firefox | SweetIM Technologies LTD. | FireFox |
77,071 |
22,277 |
| IMinent Toolbar | Iminent | IE |
75,820 |
18,975 |
Checking and cleaning the own browsers
If you want to verify your own browsers or get rid of an unwanted toolbar click on “Security” – “Tools” within the avast! window and chose “Browser Cleanup” or download the stand-alone tool e.g. at http://www.avast.com/en-us/download-thank-you.php?product=BC&locale=en-us
Stay tuned – we’ll post more on browser toolbars in the next days.