The Foxit PDF reader is becoming an Adware supported P.U.P.
For a while now, the freeware Foxit PDF reader, an alternative to the also free and much exploited Adobe Reader, has been shipping bundled with the ASK search engine toolbar. Foxit is doing this because they get paid a commission for each installation of the Toolbar, by Ask.com, which helps offset the cost of developing and updating the Foxit Reader. Ask is a search engine, formerly known as "Ask Jeeves," which has been losing its popularity over the last several years. In an effort to improve their sagging search engine ranking, they have ramped up their partnerships with various software designers who are paid to include the Ask Toolbar in their program installers. In the Foxit PDF reader installer, this toolbar is also called the "Foxit Toolbar, Powered by Ask.com." In the terms of use license that most people usually agree to without reading, the option to install this toolbar is pre-checked by default. Many users of Foxit are used to simply accepting the default options when installing or updating the Foxit software. If you do allow the toolbar to be installed, the terms of Ask Toolbar service is displayed to you, beginning with these words:
"We reserve the right to add additional features or functions to the existing Toolbar. When installed on your computer, the Toolbar periodically communicates with our servers.We may require the updating of the Toolbar ... This update may occur automatically."
The installation options warn that if you opt out of installing the "Foxit" toolbar you lose the Typewriter Tools, Text Viewer and Text Converter. This results in a lot more users allowing the Ask Toolbar to be installed than might have otherwise been the case. But, if someone wanted to remove it afterward, or disable it, there was no problem in the past.
However, as of April 2010, Foxit has been altered in the way the Ask Toolbar gets installed, so that it cannot be uninstalled in a simple fashion. According to Ellen7, on a Foxit Corporation Forum, when a user asked how to permanently remove the advertising and Ask Toolbar from the browser, after it was installed with a recent Foxit security update, her reply was: "sorry, the current version can not remove, but will be remove in the next version." (sic). Another person on that forum was told by the Forum Administrator that the current version does not allow you to remove the Ask Search from Foxit, but the next version will allow that option, as well as the removal of the browser toolbar and search changes that are forced by this version (Foxit Reader 3.2.1.401).
Furthermore, people have discovered that even if you uncheck the toolbar option during setup, it is still getting installed, or at least keeps trying to install itself, even when you tell Scotty to block it! Then, when they try to remove it, it remains in their browsers, including the current version of Firefox. Once installed, your default search engine is forcibly changed to Ask.com. Normal procedures to switch back to Google or Yahoo are met with resistance by the Ask Toolbar, which remains active even if you uninstall it via Control Panel, or via the Add-ons utility in IE and Firefox.
Freeware software that bundles advertising and toolbars that are difficult to remove, or the removal of which break the functionality of said programs, are known in the security business as "Adware." Adware that sends home details about the browsing history of users is also sometimes called "Spyware." Programs that fall into this category are also affectionately referred to as PUPS, meaning Potentially Unwanted (or Unpopular) Programs. Most anti spyware programs will detect such applications and remove them from your PC during or after a scan, if you choose to have them do so. Some of the better known anti spyware programs that remove Adware and PUPS include Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware, and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (a.k.a: MBAM, which also removes most really nasty spyware, rootkits, keyloggers and fake security alerts).
Instructions for manually resetting your search preferences in Internet Explorer and Firefox are found in my extended comments. Use them if the Ask Search Toolbar has hijacked your desired search engine in your browser.
If you have tried removing an unwanted Ask Toolbar via Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs, and via your browser Add-ons options, but to no avail, there is another means of subduing the beast. Try following these steps.
For Internet Explorer, first open Control Panel, then...
- Uninstall the Ask.com toolbar using the Add/Remove Programs
- Remove it from the Internet Options, under the General Tab > Search > Change search Defaults > "Settings" > click to highlight "Ask.com" then click on the "Remove" button at the bottom right side of the page.
For Firefox browsers, with Firefox open...
- On the address bar type: about:config (acknowledge the warning to continue)
- Change the setting - keyword.URL; - from ask.com to http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&q=
- Change the setting - browser.search.defaulturl - from ask.com to http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&q=
- change the settings - extension.snipit.chromeURL - from ask.com to http://www.google.com/search?&q={searchTerms}
- restart Firefox
You can also remove Ask.com from the list of Search Engines, in the Search box on the upper right of the Firefox browser, by scrolling down to the bottom and clicking Manage Search Engines. Click on Ask, then click Remove. Last, click on the Restore Defaults button to make Google the default search engine. This will fix the search, but won't get rid of the Toolbar. The previous steps should help accomplish that.
In all fairness, I should point out that there are many other companies that are supplying freeware applications that come bundled with optional search toolbars. These include Yahoo, Google and Bing toolbars, among others. But, in most of the programs, deselecting or not installing the toolbar does not break the program, nor does the toolbar keep trying to install against your wishes. The issue brought up in this article pertains to the Foxit implementation only, which pretty much forces the toolbar on you and resists efforts to uninstall it, or breaks portions of the program for refusing to install it. In my opinion, this makes Foxit fall into the category of PUP.
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