For the past couple weeks, I have been seeing pop up reminders informing me that Mozilla has released the new firefox 4 web browser. Being a big fan of firefox, I was anxious to see what improvements was made as far as security is concerned. Once I got around to actually installing the updated browser, I immediately noticed that I had acquired the lovely Yahoo toolbar. I say “lovely” in the most sarcastic of ways. I have a strong distaste for commercial toolbars, but I can’t seem to get away from them. They are all over the place and they continue to sneak their way onto my system. Some of the more common are Google, Windows
Live, MSN, Alexa, Asks, & AOL, just to name a small few. The developers of these toolbars often brag many cool features and convenience. Some toolbar installations include “protection” from evil internet content.
In my experience, toolbar protection measures include blocking common web pages and disruption of other software installations. When the software doesn’t know what page or download is being loaded, it is blocked. Personally, I don’t have much use for these toolbars because I, as a user am not able to derive any real value from them. Instead they just end up cluttering my browser.
While it is important to keep up to date on your software upgrades, package installs can be annoying and in some instances, dangerous. This is just a warning to be aware of what you are installing before it finds its way onto your computer.
Also, just a quick heads up, Win 7 service pack 1 is now available. Might want to ensure you got it.
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