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Does Webroot prevent home page hijacking?

  • 22 August 2012
  • 4 replies
  • 56 views
garlicwebroot
Rank
Userlevel 3
I installed software from a well known company and it auto installed the Ask.com toolbar and changed all my browsers homepages without my permission. I am super not happy about that. This is not webroots fault, but I did want to know if your software has any protection for changing homepages without user consent.
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Best answer by RetiredTripleHelix 22 August 2012, 03:45

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__________________________________________________________ check out my idea and vote for it if you agree! https://community.webroot.com/t5/Ideas-Exchange/Ability-to-disable-quot-security-disabled-quot-warnings/idi-p/77439

4 replies

RetiredTripleHelix
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +56
Well it has not been Hijacked all you have to do is uninstall the ASK Toolbar as it's not Malicious sometimes you have to watch what your installing and if does have a Custom install and uncheck any unwanted add-ons! Here is a Link to the ASK Toolbar cleaner if you want? Download
 
HTH,
 
TH
 
EDIT: Added link for ASK Toolbar Remover and Cleaner
JimM
Userlevel 7
One of the troubles with toolbars like these are that while you might think you're not giving them consent to change your homepage, in fact, if you dig through the EULA, those rights are usually buried in there somewhere.  To see where you unknowingly agreed to let it change your homepage, scroll to the seventh line down of the Ask.com toolbar EULA.  On the positive side of things, you shouldn't ever be made to install the Ask Toolbar.  There is usually a checkbox you can simply uncheck during installation of whatever program it is you're trying to install, and it will skip over installing the toolbar.  TripleHelix is right that it's not malware, so we are not going to detect it.  However, if it was malware, it never would have made it to the point of changing the homepage because it would have been caught during execution.  And worst case scenario, even if WSA wasn't sure about the program it was monitoring at the time, it could still roll back the homepage change if and when it ultimately found out the program was malware.
/// JimM /// /// Former Community Manager - Now Humble Internet Citizen/// /// Also Formerly a Technical Support Escalations Engineer ///
garlicwebroot
Rank
Userlevel 3
Thank you for the full explanation, I will be sure to be more careful. Now that I think of it, while installing the program from Tinychat it asked me to install Adobe Air. Perhaps the Adobe Air install brought Ask.com with it?
__________________________________________________________ check out my idea and vote for it if you agree! https://community.webroot.com/t5/Ideas-Exchange/Ability-to-disable-quot-security-disabled-quot-warnings/idi-p/77439
RetiredTripleHelix
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +56
Adobe is known for unwanted add-ons when I post updates here and on other sites I always say untick unwanted add-ons! https:///t5/Security-Industry-News/Adobe-Flash-Player-11-4-402-265/td-p/9614
 
TH  😉

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