Yahoo Launches Toolbar with Spyware Removal

Yahoo launched a toolbar with a spyware removal software.

I guess I'll be adding a fourth one to my list.

For spyware removal, I typically use spybot search and destroy, which I believe is the market leader marketshare wise. It is free, but community supported. Spyware removal is a huge underserved need. I welcome yahoo's involvement.

I haven't used the tool in depth, nor have I studied spyware removal programs to see how they tick. I am a fairly avid user, though, as I like to explore the web and often, I have things unknowingly downloaded to my pc. Here is my quick review:

To test it out, I ran spybot, rebooted and then I ran yahoo's toolbar spyware remover. There were a few things that spybot had recognized, but that had not cleaned off entirely (or the spyware reloaded when I rebooted.), that yahoo's toolbar recognized. However, yahoo hasn't gotten rid of them entirely, either, because I am still getting a lot of pop-ups on sites that don't serve pop-ups. Yahoo's tool was very quick and very user friendly. And it seemed to have a lot of spyware definitions.

One humorous thing: It considered alexa and lycos's sidesearch as spyware. Alexa has a bad rap among all spyware removal tool makers. It was the first toolbar to track user movements across the web and aggregate the trend data. I believe that most of the big portals do this now, though (yahoo included I think). So, yahoo's toolbar calling alexa's toolbar "spyware" is a bit hypocritical. I don't exactly like lycos sidesearch, but I did download it knowingly and purposefully. Since there is no universally accepted (by users) definition of spyware (like spam), I guess it is ok that these two programs are considered spyware. However, this is the gray area. Yahoo should be careful here. This issue could be similar to microsoft's issues with software compatibility and competitor's products.

Next Up: Microsoft will be bundling their next operating system, LongHorn, and the Microsoft Office Suite into the MSN Toolbar. (joke)

(found via Andy Beal)

Comments

[michelle miller]

remove spyware

[Gina Sofie]

I wish you great success, good luck and a lot of fun for the future. Maybe one day you will really be the best of all.

[eric webster]

i need to get the yahoo tool bar off my computer if any one knows how tell me
please

[hhh]

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