Hi,

Alexa toolbar is considered a Spyware ...................and your AD-Aware or Spyware will report it and remove it on scanning................it is reported as collecting Information about your Surfing habits and reporting this to a host site.................actually your Surfing habits is a invaluale data to Advertise they than Bombard you with relevent advertisements............Advertisers are getting Smarter day by day ..

Alexa Refuses these claims and say they don't pass on this information to anybody....................Actually the Sher amount of Information it collects about surfing habits scare a few people

Most of th Spyware Removal programs Admit that Alexa have stopped Spying on people ....but they remove it on precaunary measures

Official Description: Alexa web search -- a new kind of search engine. With traffic rankings, user reviews and other information about sites, Alexa is a web site discovery tool. Features an Amazon shopping button on the product and anonymously aggregates surfing information. Provides clear EULA as well as opt-out instructions.

Alexa web search combines the powerful Google search engine with Alexa's comprehensive site information and puts it all inside an Amazon.com interface.

Comment: Used to transmit a indentifiying ID but no longer does this.

To make things clear people who have difficulty understanding this:

At this time, we do NOT consider this program to be a form of "spyware".

Note- There have been reports that secure URLs can be sent when using the "Related Site Function" due to a security flaw in Internet Explorer.

http://www.spywareguide.com/product_show.php?id=418

The Alexa toolbar

We've received many requests as to whether the Alexa toolbar is spyware or not. Well, the Alexa toolbar which is available for download contains spyware agents (it is a MS Internet Explorer key that points to a MS DLL and MS HTML file. This redirects to a page, and that page redirects to the Alexa web site), whereby information about your web surfing is gathered for statistics purposes to fuel the Alexa ranking system. The Alexa toolbar is a Browser Helper Object (BHO), which is a component of Internet Explorer that will load whenever it starts, shares IE's memory context, can perform any action on the available windows and modules. It collects and stores information about the web pages you view, the data you enter in online forms and search fields, and, with versions 5.0 and higher, the products you purchase online while using the toolbar service. Whether or not the owner (Amazon.com) of Alexa does other things with this information is not known.

http://simplythebest.net/info/spywar...a_spyware.html

I would personally recommend Use Yahoo ToolBar or Google Toolbar Instead............. They have Inbulit Pop-up-Blocker and easy Search option .................It's a very thin line Alexa is walking on and the temptation to cross the line is huge for them.................and looking at their past record emmm no very hard to trust them

In short Programs like Alexa are considered malware because the information they collect can be easily Misused by them ...............and they have been known to Mis-use it in the past ...............they might not be doing it today .............but because tthey have done it in the past tey might do it in the future


-=SF_13=-

I use the google toolbar all the time, but I like the suggested sites on the Alexa bar, so I turn it on from time to time to find related sites, and I'm not too worried about the "spyware" in there..

Hi,


Microsoft Just launched Anti-Spyware Beta1 ...................so if you want to test it

Click Here

Peace
-=SF_13=-

I edited your post a bit, it said yrl not url, so the link didn't work...

I tried Giant antispyware a while ago, it worked great, but I found it to be a bit too paranoid about harmless cookies and pop-ups...

But I'll guess I can give this one a try as well soon anyway..

Hi,

Thanx Redleg ,

it's a Beta verson so it is Bound to be Buggy .............i would'nt suggest New Users (new to Computers) Give it a Try just yet.

But i am Impressed MIcrosoft has really Worked a bit on this ..............Good Install , Decent Interface, and easy to use and Configure interface...................Doesn't look/feel like a beta at all

-It comes with real-time protection

-The scan results are extremely detailed

But it's giving me too many False Positives .............Microsoft has a few Things to sort out sitll in this ................eg it Picked up WinPCap as a Spyware

And this wouldn't work on windows 9X ............minimum Windows 2000 or Above........waaaa Microsoft is Stopping giving support to Windows 98 users waaaaa

All in all Promises a great deal..............wonder what will be it's Price when it is finally relelased.

Peace
-=SF_13=-

I'm not surprised that it gives you false positives, since it's based on Giants engine (and probably "improved" a bit by Microsoft as well.. )

I've been requested pr PM to make this one a Sticky, so here we go..

A lot of usefull info in here..

You can also visit www.spyber.com for a quick spy/adware scan, and find many good and free internet security resources.

Feel free to contribute in this thread if you know of any other usefull resources or tips.

Ad Aware SE works way better than 6.0

hey guys
iv had some probs with my computer recently, adware bs type stuff and the usual programs weren't doing anything. i ran spybot, i ran adaware, i ran norton, nothing got rid of this insidious little program so started searching around for forums where someone could give me a hand and i came across Bleeping Computer: Computer Help and Spyware Removal they were ace, what you do is download "hijackthis" ( a VERY good program, tells you whats running on your computer and whats downloaded itself etc) and then post a log of the results of the scan on thier forum. then one of their mods will come and give you the steps you need to get rid of whatever is ailing you.
and they do a damn good job, i dont know how they know what they do, or how they know how to fix stuff but im glad they do, i cannot reccommend this forum highly enough if you have something on your computer

You can also go to www.spyber.com and download hijackthis there.
I've also added a link to a great (and free) automated hijackthis log file analyzer at the bottom there..

Hijackthis is a great program, but it's not a good idea to delete anything unless you're 100% sure what you're doing..

You can also post your spy/adware problems in this part of the forum, there are a few members here (me included) that knows a thing or two about removing pests like that..