Do web browser toolbars invade your online privacy?
It's now a popular practice for internet users to install
third-party toolbar browser extensions to customize and enhance
their web browsing experience. Web browser extensions enhance
browsers with such features as search toolbars, background images or
skins, automatically filling out web forms and displaying related
links. They are usually free of charge and earn their revenue by
delivering targeted advertising to the user's screen display.
Unfortunately many of these web browser extensions also send
intrusive pop-up ads, monitor surfing habits and may even stealth
install themselves without the user's prior knowledge and consent. |
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| Some of the more common browser extensions include the Gator,
iSearch, Mirar, I-Lookup and Hotbar toolbars which are all a type of
software product known as "adware" since they are programs that
deliver ads to their users. Google's toolbar
provides an enhanced search engine function and details about the
websites visited. To its credit it has a manual user selected option
that permits details of website visits to be sent to its home server
so it can retrieve and display additional information about those
websites. Unlike Google, many browser toolbars automatically monitor
and report back to their home servers with information about where
their users are traveling on the internet. |
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| The risk with website monitoring is that it's possible for query
strings to be monitored and retransmitted. Query strings are data
strings following the '?' delimiter in urls often used by webform
submissions and search engines. Query strings may contain sensitive
information such as credit card numbers, passwords, names,
addresses, hotel/flight reservation details and other personally
identifiable information which an unethical browser extension could
monitor and retransmit to its home server or a third party.
Firewalls won't block browser extensions because they're
integrated into the web browser. |
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- The Hotbar browser extension is adware that monitors
website visits and searches performed, even when its toolbar is
disabled. It sends information about those websites to the
Hotbar home server so it can return relevant advertising to the
user in the form of toolbar link buttons and pop-up ads. The
drawcard for Hotbar is that it "beautifies" MS Internet
Explorer, Windows Explorer and Outlook with skins or background
toolbar images. It has a silent update feature and re-installer
that makes removing Hotbar particularly difficult.
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- The Mirar toolbar finds web pages of similar topic
and interest to whatever page the user is on. To achieve this
end, Mirar sends details of website visits to its home server so
that targeted advertising can be returned to the user's PC. It
is also reported to stealth install without the user's knowledge
and is problematic to remove.
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- Gator is a popular browser extension that assists
users during online transactions by remembering passwords,
filling in forms and sending them special offers. Targeted
advertisements are sent to users based on their historical
surfing habits or the site they're currently visiting. Gator
software runs while ever its icon is present in the system tray,
sending and receiving information from its home server and
displaying advertisements to the users.
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- The Xupiter toolbar has link buttons to its search
engine. At Windows startup Xupiter runs a task which downloads
upgrades and may also generate pop-up ads. It can also change
the user's browser home page setting to point to the Xupiter
home page as well as add its own links to the user's favorites.
It may also monitor urls and report this information to a
central server.
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- Lop.com is a portal website and Lop is their program
installed by drive-by-download. It may consist of a web browser
toolbar with a randomly generated nonsense name containing links
to Lop.com. It can also change the browser's default home pages,
add its own links to favorites and set some of the browser's
search features to use Lop.com. It runs a task at windows
startup which resets the browser's home page and search to
Lop.com to circumvent the user changing them. The effect is that
user becomes a virtual prisoner of the Lop.com website.
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| Toolbar Removal: Browser toolbars can usually be often be
removed using the Windows Add/Remove Programs utility or by running
the toolbar's uninstaller. Alternatively, adware toolbars can be
removed by running a safe (more on that in a second) adware/spyware removal utility.
Spyware removal programs (like
Ad-Aware) will automatically
uninstall adware and spyware that may be lurking on your system. |
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| Certain "free spyware removal tools" may be of equally
dubious nature. I'd avoid these for instance: NoAdware from
Noadware.net, Spyban by Bundelware, spywarekilla.com,
ScanPsyware.com. Stick with
Ad-Aware,
Spybot
S&D or some of the
other reputable providers like Norton and McAfee for system
utilities. |
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| Final Comments: Be aware of any program the is
requesting to be installed on your PC. If you're not sure, I
personally would not install it. If you want to know
more about whatever the application is, read the company privacy
policies. You can find common ones at: Hotbar is a trademark
of Hotbar.com, Xupiter is a trademark of Xupiter.com, I-lookup is a
trademark of i-lookup.com, Gator is a trademark of The Gator
Corporation / Gator.com / The Claria Corporation, Lop is a trademark
of lop.com, Mirar is a trademark of getmirar.com, iSearch is a
trademark of isearch.com, Mysearch, Mywebsearch are trademarks of
funwebproducts.com. |