For your safety, you really need to know.
I recently hit, by mistake, what I thought was an Explorer
upgrade option. It turned out to be a pop-up appearing
legitimate but really was not. It uploaded a product called
Intelligent Explorer on my machine. What a nightmare!
I did some research on the web and found messages like this one from
a BullGuard Antivirus Forum,
“PLEASE HELP!!! I HAVE A SPYWARE, TROJAN AND HIJACKER ON MY
COMPUTER. I HAVE RUN BULLGUARD, CWSHREDDER AND AD-AWARE.
ALL HAVE PICKED UP THE VIRUSES AND SAID THAT THEY HAVE BEEN
MOVED/REMOVED BUT WHEN I LOG ONTO THE INTERNET THAT DAMN
INTELLIGENT EXPLORER TOOLBAR IS SHOWING”
Another message from spywareinfo Forum goes something like this:
“Hey I’m having issues with something called Internet explorer
toolbar - Intelligent explorer. I can’t find a way to remove
it from my comp and I really don’t want to reinstall windows.
I’ve used spybot, ad-ware, and cw shredder but nothing seems to
work.”
It appears that Intelligent Explorer allows other software to be
downloaded to your machine and this is where the problem
occurs. What is even more remarkable is that by downloading
Intelligent Explorer, their license grants them the right to
install software add-ins on your computer at their will. Take
a look at what the software license for Intelligent Explore says
(go to to read it all):
“You grant to us the right, exercisable by us until you uninstall
the Software or this agreement is otherwise terminated, to
provide to you the Service of downloading and causing to be
displayed advertising material on your computer, through
‘pop-up’ or other display while you use your browser. You acknowledge
and agree that installation of the Software may automatically
modify toolbars and other settings of your browser. By
installing the Software you agree to such modifications.”
The company, IBC incorporated, is incorporated in Belize. I really
can’t believe this license!
One end user found highly objectionable pop-up advertisements
generated by this software bundled with Intelligent Explorer
in the form of extreme pornography.
I have yet to break this.
Intelligent Explorer is a plug-in, which can create a new home
page, as well as start up and endless loop of pop-ups. You
can remove the view bar, but then starting up Internet Explorer
will cause it to reappear. I asked some friends to help, and
no one could tell me what to do.
This is what I did:
I bought a copy of a program called XoftSpy and it removed
the software. It took two scans and a reboot to do it.
They have a free trial download so it is worth trying out.
I have seen other FREE spyware products out there which include
spybot, NoAdware, Spyware Eliminator, Pal Spyware Remover, and Spyware C.O.P.
But I cannot tell you how well they work or guarantee how safe
they may be.
Let the buyer beware!
If you haven’t already, you can download firefox for free! Try it out yourself and see why it’s the best browser on the planet.