Help me identify this software- is it spyware?
August 5, 2004 10:32 AM Subscribe
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.
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
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
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
posted by LairBob at 11:18 AM on August 5, 2004
Response by poster: 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
By the way, this thing is also appearing on my IE title bar.
posted by johnnydark at 11:26 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
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
posted by LairBob at 1:52 PM on August 5, 2004
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posted by boaz at 10:52 AM on August 5, 2004