14 DAY TRIAL // Although it’s a pain in the you-know-where to see a prompt every now and then trying to warn you about the potential danger of installing something or even to confirm for the third time, prompt messages only want to be listened to.
With the quick spread of the information superhighway, malicious programs found a suitable environment to flourish and infect dozens of computers in a matter of seconds. It’s all in the code, and pressing a single wrong button might push you into a trap.
Some freeware programs come bundled with different third-party applications, some of which are dangerous, some which might just come in handy. The only thing you need to keep an eye out for are button labels and questions. As seen on the web, popular or not, bloatware is found in many installers.
Pay attention to all prompts
UAC pop-ups display the whole name of the program that you run or runs automatically. If it’s a long list of characters that make no sense, try to avoid it, it’s most likely not good.
Installing an application is usually the first place to look. If there’s an option to go through a custom installation, pick it, third-party components can be hidden there. If not, read the first few lines or title of each license agreement that pops up. Decline them all if necessary, and run the installer again if it closes, paying more attention to offers.
Removing a program is also a risky process. It’s a popular thing now for bloatware to suggest others of its kind, so you press yes just as you would for a confirmation message. Upon the next restart, the one in particular is gone, but another is installed to do the same thing.
Downloading anything from the web is usually risky. Pages with direct download links are usually accompanied by ads that look like authentic ones. If they give out an EXE when pressed, don’t grab it. Just hover your cursor over the suspect area. Chances are the banner gets highlighted, or there’s a little X in what would be the upper right corner.
Tip: In case you got yourself into too much trouble, there’s a chance the installer or browser window stops responding, while malicious programs do their work. An interesting thing you can do is repeatedly click on the X window, even for the troubleshooter pop-up. This kills all processes related to that window. Who said button mashing is bad, right?
List of suspects and the cure
1. Adssite Toolbar; 2. BearShare; 3. Bonzi Buddy; 4. Comet Cursor; 5. ClipGenie; 6. Cydoor; 7. Direct Revenue; 8. FlashGet; 9. Winzix; 10. ErrorSafe;
A powerful solution is to download and install AdwCleaner. No installation is required. Simply run the executable, hit the Scan button and then press Cleaning to remove all suspicious programs. Save your work because everything is closed and a restart is mandatory. In addition, open your web browser and manually remove any leftover add-ons or extensions.
