A Most Sincere "Thank You"

[haistakaaite]

I want to thank you for deciding to include the Ask.com toolbar in ImgBurn. I did not choose to install it. I unchecked all checkboxes. Well, it installed anyway. Yes, the very version that I downloaded from your website.

 

Now everything, including Firefox, has been infected.

 

I cloned the hard drive three days ago, installed incredible amounts of updates, new versions of existing software and finally, updated ImgBurn.

 

Now you have undid all that. I no longer trust my machine. I can't delete the Ask stuff, it keeps popping up everywhere.

 

God knows what other malware you installed and I don't know about yet?

 

I have to restore the cloned copy and start the update from scratch. But you know what? I am not going to install ImgBurn. Ever again.

 

Thank you for wasting three days of my life.

 

I know, you will delete this thread before anyone has a chance to read it. I write it anyway before starting the clone operation.

 

It was a good software.

 

Bye.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Look, nothing is 'infected'.

 

Ask is a big, respectable company. Their toolbar has its own uninstaller that you can find in the usual add/remove programs area (or programs and features on newer OS's) within control panel.

 

I honestly have no idea why it installed if you really did uncheck the boxes like you say you did. That's certainly never happened to me before and if it was a real issue then I'd expect/hope to see a LOT more people complaining about it.

 

Ask also test the installer before allowing it to be released - automatic install would breach T&C.

[haistakaaite]

The old thread was locked (as I expected) so I created new topic. Posting from my secondary computer now. The infected computer is being cloned now, I'm restoring the clean image. Fortunately this second machine was turned OFF so the cancer could not spread to it through the LAN. The other computer no longer was mine, it was malware's computer.

 

During the installation ZoneAlarm popped up and told me that the installer wants to contact something and I denied it as always. The installer froze for about 30 seconds (futile connection attempt). Then it asked to install the Ask cancer, I unchecked all boxes and clicked "Install". ZoneAlarm then notified me that the installer again wants something, I denied it. Installer froze for 30 seconds, then continued and created the cancer.

 

So there's your bug. Try installing while blocking the connection and see what happens. It WILL infect your computer.

 

I call all toolbars, etc. as malware. Because that's what its name is. MALWARE. It's all the same.

 

I tried to uninstall it. Don't really know if it uninstalled. Maybe the uninstaller removed the big tumor, but left smaller ones everywhere. Firefox was completely hosed, it would not even start anymore. IE's search system was utterly unusable. Registry was full of "Ask.com this", "Ask.com that".

 

So, again, thank you. I might finish by sunday. Three days behind my schedule. Maybe, MAYBE, if I do an all-nighter, I'll get it done by late friday. After cloning I have to thoroughly update the OS, software, apply other updates, reconfigure everything. All that is gone now. Fortunately my files were intact.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It wasn't locked, maybe you just have issues with using the forum software?

 

Before I released 2.5.1.0 I installed and uninstalled the toolbar a bunch of times. Removing it worked ok for me. Sure I had to revert the homepage and search engine options (if I'd selected them in the installer in the first place) in IE manually but that takes all of 2 seconds. I must admit, I didn't see what happened within Firefox.

 

You're always going to end up with the odd mention of a program you uninstall if you search in Regedit, but then not all those entries may have been put there by the original installer. It's not always easy to remove every single trace automatically.

[Cynthia]

I can't delete the Ask stuff, it keeps popping up everywhere.

Latest Nero has this toolbar also. Decided to install it just to see how Nero handles it and it was as easy to remove through Windows remove programs, once it was installed as when I installed it with ImgBurn on a Vista computer.

 

Here is a nice program to keep your Windows settings saved in the future.

 

http://intelloware.com/en/QuickConfig.aspx

[ianymaty]

I might finish by sunday. Three days behind my schedule. Maybe, MAYBE, if I do an all-nighter, I'll get it done by late friday

 

I never clone the system partition. I always install from scratch deleting the partition and formatting at install.

 

Never took me more than 3-4 hours installing OS, updating, configuring an all the programs that I use, and want.

 

Why is taking you so long? Grab a beer or two and a cup of coffee and by time you'd drink it you are done an have a fresh OS instlled. Better than clone in my oppinion.

 

Oh, and I allways block my homepage through registry!

[kenmasters1976]

I have a feeling haistakaaite is just making this up... or he just blindly clicked "Next" during installation and is now upset.