Harold_Z Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 I just reformatted my pc (luckilly not that hard in windows 7)to get rid of the "Babylon Toolbar" and some attendant search that took over my home page. Is there an easier way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete C Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 Harold, are you saying you can reformat without losing all your programs and data in Windows 7? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosco Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 A friend of mine had this overtake all his browsers (Firefox, IE, Chrome). It redirects all your searches to infected websites. Nasty. Getting rid of it is not easy. Will probably involve opening your computer in safe mode and running some anti virus software. Someone sent me a link to some advice on getting rid of it, will see if I can find it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosco Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 Can't find the link I was sent, but this looks similar: http://deletemalware.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/remove-babylon-toolbar-and-search-web.html Didn't actually perform this myself. It involves editing the registry, which you might not want to do yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Garrett Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 My dad got this on one of his computers. He is quite tech-savvy and is still grappling with getting rid of it - has tried several of the usual remedies (different antivirus programs, MalwareBytes, etc.) with no luck and when I talked to him yesterday had pretty much resigned himself to having to manually edit the registry to permanently fix it. Fortunately, he has several computers so even if he has to scrape the drive and reinstall Windows, it's not the end of the world. I hate this kind of crap. It's getting more and more common for software installers to try to sneak adware-laden toolbars past those who aren't paying attention and just click through the default options on said installers. Babylon is just an extreme example of that evil trend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harold_Z Posted August 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 (edited) Harold, are you saying you can reformat without losing all your programs and data in Windows 7? I wish but no Pete. You have to back up your files and reinstall programs. For me that wasn't bad. I keep an external hard drive with everything important backed up on it. But the reformat itself was 3 clicks and come back in an hour. I spoke to a techie. He suggested the reformat and told me that it's actually good to reformat every so often. Keeps everything working better. What seems to be happening now is when you do a search for a download make sure you download from the source - not an intermediary. Rosco - Thanks for the link. Edited August 21, 2012 by Harold_Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 How does one pick this odious thing up, anyway? I'd like to be on the lookout... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harold_Z Posted August 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 (edited) I'm not sure how it happened to my computer. My Roxio program stopped working and as part of trying to get that to work I decided to reinstall firefox. I went to the first download on google thinking it was the official site. I was in a rush (you can't be in a rush doing this sh-t)but the site was taking too long to download and I stopped the download and realized I wasn't on the official mozilla sight. I went to the right site and downloaded normally. And the toolbar was there. I think these things are legal. During the period I was reinstalling my programs I noticed that many of the earliest ones listed were 2nd parties. Almost goofed again but caught it. One site said they would install a toolbar but had no box to decline it! This stuff is going to be happening a lot. Just be sure if you're downloading to decline any tool bars and stay away from second parties offering the download. I put on a firefox extension called Web of Trust that marks safe sites on the search result. Seems to work pretty well. Edited August 21, 2012 by Harold_Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_forumlogo.png.a607ef20a6e0c299ab2aa6443aa1f32e.png)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.