Several important locations will be scanned in the process including running programs, browser plugins, winlogon notifications, browser helper objects, Internet Explorer toolbars or Windows Services. FreeFixer does not rate the findings which means that it is up to the user to perform further research to find out if they are dangerous or not. The software makes however use of a whitelist to remove system processes, services and other official files from the list of results to narrow down the result list to potentially dangerous ones.

Each item will be listed with its name and location, other relvant values depending on the type of item and options to lookup information about it on the Internet and to delete it.

Results can be saved in a log file for further processing. Selected items can be fixed (that means deleted) by clicking on the Fix button in the software. It is usually a good idea to perform a search on the Internet before deleting any files from the list. Some can be excluded just by looking at their names while some do not give the slightest hint at what they are.

Freefixer makes use of a database that is located on the developers website which contains additional information about each item. One interesting aspect of the database is that it will display user actions by displaying a pie chart detailing how many users kept and removed the item from their computer system.

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Those users usually install a bunch of crapware on their system because of the way they install software. This includes toolbars, new homepages, desktop shortcuts to tempting offers and basically everything that is not needed to run an application. Yes, that includes the Do you mind if we track your use of our program and transfer the data to our main server to analyse it options.

To make a valid point somewhere in this article. A lot of problems with computers could vanish over night if users would opt for custom installations more often. They would discover a wealth of options and features that they could uncheck before installation to reduce system load, increase system resources and have a overall better computer experience.

So what is it. Are you a next next next guy ?

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Since most are either installed during a software installation or from a website it is not trivial to find out how to uninstall a toolbar. Toolbar Cop is one of those softwares that lists all installed toolbars (plus other elements such as Browser Helper Objects or Download Managers) in one place.

Every toolbar found can be deleted, which means removed and uninstalled or deactivated in Toolbar Cop. To do that the user would right-click on an entry and select Enable / Disable / Delete the selected items. Additional information are displayed in the Tools menu under the entry Add-on Information.

Toolbar Cop can also open a new browser window with search results about a selected toolbar. This could be useful if the user is not sure if the toolbar can be safely deleted or deactivated from his system.

Toolbar Cop is only working with the Microsoft Internet Explorer. A backup mode is turned on by default, all changes to the registry are stored in .reg files which can be used to restore the changes at a later date.

Users can also generate a detailed browser add-on report which will be saved as a simple text document. This can then be easily copied / pasted into forums or send to someone who could analyze the contents.

Read More:

Toolbar Cop

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The free software Toolbar Uninstaller scans your system and displays the installed toolbars if they are known by the software. It currently detects 53 Firefox toolbars and 3 Internet Explorer ones. This does not seem that much but the author is explicitly asking for help to be able to add more toolbars to the application.

This is done by submitting information about a new toolbar on the developers homepage. It will then be tested and included once a removal routine has been found. The software is currently available as a beta version and definitely something to look after in the future.

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