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HotBar

Overview

Summary

 Marketed as a program to add graphical skins to IE toolbars, it also adds its own toolbar. It monitors all URLs you visit to add link buttons to its toolbar dependent on the site you are visiting.

Vendor Description

 

"HOTBAR COLLECTS AND STORES INFORMATION ABOUTTHE WEB PAGES YOU VIEW AND THE DATA YOU ENTER IN SEARCHENGINE SEARCH FIELDS WHILE USING THE SOFTWARE. HOTBARUSES THIS INFORMATION TO DETERMINE WHICH ADS AND BUTTONSTO DISPLAY ON YOUR HOTBAR TOOLBARS AND WHICH ADS TOSHOW YOUR BROWSER." - Hotbar Terms of Use.

Alias

 Adware/Hotbar [Panda],

Category

 Adware: Software that displays popup/popunder ads when the primary user interface is not visible or which do not appear to be assocaited with the product.

Browser Helper Object:  (BHO). A component that Internet Explorer will load whenever it starts, shares IE's memory context, can perform any action on the available windows and modules. A BHO can detect events, create windows to display additional information on a viewed page, monitor messages and actions. Microsoft calls it "a spy we send to infiltrate the browser's land." BHOs are not stopped by personal firewalls, because they are seen by the firewall as your browser itself. Some exploits of this technology search all pages you view in IE and replace banner advertisements with other ads. Some monitor and report on your actions. Some change your home page.

Downloader:  A program designed to retrieve and install additional files, when run. Most will be configured to retrieve from a designated web or FTP site.

Search Hijacker:  Any software that resets your browser's settings to point to other sites when you perform a search. Hijacks may reroute your info and address requests through an unseen site, capturing that info. In such hijacks, your browser may behave normally, but be slower. Search results when such a hijacker is running will sometimes differ from non-hijacked results.

Toolbar:  A group of buttons which perform common tasks. A toolbar for Internet Explorer is nomally located below the menu bar at the top of the form. Toolbars may be created by Browser Helper Objects.

Reasons For Retention

 Changes browser settings other than homepage, without user permission.
 

Origins

 

Group

 Hotbar.com Inc

Vendor

 

HotBar

Mailing Address

 Hotbar.com Inc 226w 37st New York, NY 10018 USA

Phone:

 212-5608940 fax: 123 123 1234

Date of Origin

 April, 2002
 

Detection and Removal

Manual Removal

 Removable from "Add/Remove Programs" on the Control Panel. However it leaves two copies of its installer and other files and a number of registry entries. You may remove these items manually, if you wish, following the instructions below.

 Stop Running Processes:

Kill these running processes with Task Manager:



Remove Autorun Reference:

Go To the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run


If you find the value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run\hotbar, delete it and reboot the machine immediately.

If you find the value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run\spam blocker for outlook express, delete it and reboot the machine immediately.

If you find the value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run\weatherontray, delete it and reboot the machine immediately.



Unregister DLLs:

Unregister these DLLs with Regsvr32, then reboot:



Clean Registry:

Remove these registry items (if present) with RegEdit:



Remove Files:

Remove these files (if present) with Windows Explorer:



Remove Directories:

Remove these directories (if present) with Windows Explorer:



Restore Settings:

After following the instructions above, you will still need to restore your original settings and prevent this from happening again.
 
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