Help me identify this software- is it spyware?

August 5, 2004 10:32 AM

I have something on my MS Word window I can't get rid of, and I think it's spyware. Pic of offending thing inside.

posted by johnnydark to computers & internet (8 comments total)

So do Spybot or Ad-aware find it? I don't recognize this, but these programs identify and remove lots of spyware that I don't recognize. You could also look through the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel for programs you don't recognize.
posted by boaz at 10:52 AM on August 5, 2004

I think that's the "blinkx" bar. It's a search engine product, like a competitor to Google, but it's got a client that installs into Windows and adds the functionality into Windows apps.

To my knowledge, it's not "malware", in that I don't think it does any tracking or anything like that. Whether or not it's annoying, of course, is like whether or not a plant is a "weed"--if you don't want it there, it sucks.

I don't think that spyware/virus apps will catch it if it _is_ blinckx, but you should be able to either turn off that option in the blinkx prefs, or just uninstall the whole thing.
posted by LairBob at 11:16 AM on August 5, 2004

Did you try Hijack This! ?
posted by signal at 11:18 AM on August 5, 2004

Yep, it is blinkx--this is an image of the toolbar straight from their own site:


posted by LairBob at 11:18 AM on August 5, 2004

Nope, Spybot and Ad-aware don't recognize it. I've tried multiple times.

By the way, this thing is also appearing on my IE title bar.
posted by johnnydark at 11:26 AM on August 5, 2004

Seriously, try HijackThis
posted by signal at 11:59 AM on August 5, 2004

Thread about blinkx on the blue. There's nothing on the blinkx site about how to uninstall it. I third going with HijackThis.
posted by iconomy at 12:09 PM on August 5, 2004

I tried blinkx, and while I found it pretty useless, I didn't have any trouble uninstalling it from the normal "Add or Remove Programs" panel. Is that not working for you?
posted by LairBob at 1:52 PM on August 5, 2004