Comments on: Help me identify this software- is it spyware?

Question: Help me identify this software- is it spyware?

johnnydark — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 10:32:21 -0800

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.

By: boaz

boaz — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 10:52:40 -0800

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.

By: LairBob

LairBob — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:16:40 -0800

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.

By: signal

signal — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:18:38 -0800

Did you try Hijack This! ?

By: LairBob

LairBob — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:18:55 -0800

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

By: johnnydark

johnnydark — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:26:04 -0800

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.

By: signal

signal — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:59:38 -0800

Seriously, try HijackThis

By: iconomy

iconomy — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 12:09:37 -0800

Thread about blinkx on the blue. There's nothing on the blinkx site about how to uninstall it. I third going with HijackThis.

By: LairBob

LairBob — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 13:52:16 -0800

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?