Avast Browser Cleanup at work

Thomas Wespel 20 Mar 2013

Avast Browser Cleanup at work

Does this internet browser window look familiar to you?

Browser_Toolbars

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 Корпорация Майкрософт 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.

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