![]() ![]() Click the Search button to start scanning for any unwanted adware and on completion it will open a text log file with the results. The program is very easy to operate with only Search, Delete and Uninstall buttons present. ![]() This has the potential to be the most powerful toolbar remover and cleaner listed here. ![]() We’ll then see how much of the toolbars and their leftovers have been removed.ĪdwCleaner is a free and portable adware cleaner that claims to delete adware, Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUP’s), remove toolbars and also homepage hijackers. To run a quick test, 4 common toolbars have been installed Ask Toolbar, ALOT Toolbar, AVG Toolbar and Babylon Toolbar and 3 browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer 9) are on the system. Here’s a selection of tools with the idea of specifically helping to remove toolbars and what they leave behind. Some toolbars don’t even offer an uninstall option and some might offer slightly more obscure names designed to confuse the average user, or in some case offer multiple entries which all need removing individually. You then have to manually access the browser’s settings to change things back. A classic example is the Babylon Toolbar which is easily removed from the Control Panel, but leaves traces of itself all over your browsers having changed and left the start pages, default search engines and inline searches still set to Babylon. Toolbars that can be fully uninstalled via the Control Panel in Windows and leave no trace of themselves behind shouldn’t really be considered as a malicious software, although those that don’t completely remove themselves certainly should. If you don’t pay attention and blindly click the Next button during a software install offering a toolbar, you’re almost guaranteed to find it on your system afterwards. Most third party toolbars included in software installers are generally unwanted but many of them automatically opt you in to installing them, and you have to manually find and select the right buttons or tick boxes to opt out. The problem arises when toolbars try to sneak their way onto your Windows install by either making the options to opt out difficult or intentionally confusing or misleading. Toolbars are not all bad though and there have been a few over the years that have been quite well liked such as the Google Toolbar, and some are legitimately used to try and generate a bit of revenue for the software developers. It’s pretty safe to say that not many computer users are thrilled when you mention the word “Toolbar” to them because almost everybody who owns a PC has come into contact with at least 1, whether they meant to install them or not. ![]()
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