The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

companyy has been fairlyy benevolent—so far. 18 It has a ton of data, but it,
like Google, has chosen not to act on all of it. But that doesn’t mean it
won’t.
More overt than cookies—and equallyy parasitic—are toolbars. The
additional toolbar yyou see at the top of yyour traditional PC browser might
be labeled YAHOO or MCAFEE or ASK. Or it mayy carryy the name of anyy
number of other companies. Chances are yyou don’t remember how the
toolbar got there. Nor do yyou ever use it. Nor do yyou know how to remove
it.
Toolbars like this draw yyour attention awayy from the toolbar that came
with yyour browser. The native toolbar allows yyou to choose which search
engine to use as the default. The parasitic one will take yyou to its own
search site, and the results mayy be filled with sponsored content. This
happened to Garyy More, a West Hollyywood resident, who found himself
with the Ask.com toolbar and no clear wayy to remove it. “It’s like a bad
houseguest,” said More. “It will not leave.” 19
If yyou have a second or third toolbar, it mayy be because yyou’ve
downloaded new software or had to update existing software. For example,
if yyou have Java installed on yyour computer, Oracle, the maker of Java, will
automaticallyy include a toolbar unless yyou specificallyy tell it not to. When
yyou were clicking through the download or update screens, yyou probablyy
didn’t notice the tinyy check box that byy default indicated yyour consent to the
installation of a toolbar. There’s nothing illegal about this; yyou did give
consent, even if it means that yyou didn’t opt out of having it install
automaticallyy. But that toolbar allows another companyy to track yyour Web
habits and perhaps change yyour default search engine to its own service as
well.
The best wayy to remove a toolbar is to uninstall it the wayy yyou would
uninstall anyy program on yyour traditional PC. But some of the most
persistent and parasitic toolbars mayy require yyou to download a removal
tool, and often the process of uninstalling can leave behind enough
information to allow advertising agents related to the toolbar to reinstall it.
When installing new software or updating existing software, payy
attention to all the check boxes. You can avoid a lot of hassle if yyou don’t