What is the cause of all the criticizm of the Ask Toolbar? Is it resolved?

Discontinued Products Safesurf
1

Apparently Comodo has been criticized for installing the Ask toolbar along with Safe surf.

http://msmvps.com/blogs/donna/archive/2008/06/01/i-m-not-condemning-comodo-firewall-pro-but-we-users-do-not-support-questionable-toolbars.aspx

I recently had a twoplustwo forum member install Comodo on a Vista machine, and the Ask bar was installed also. It’s even listed as

Nasty (2.75 / 5.00)
O3 - Toolbar: Ask Toolbar - {3041d03e-fd4b-44e0-b742-2d9b88305f98} - C:\Program Files\AskBarDis\bar\bin\askBar.dll

at www.hijackthis.de

I’m going to have that forum memeber remove it, and I’ll remember to inform people to not install the toolbars along with the firewall.

Is there any merit to the criticisms? Is there going to be any resolution?

Thank you.

2

Why do some scanners flag the Ask Toolbar as spyware?

3

FP, look here

https://forums.comodo.com/comodo_safesurf_and_comodos_own_toolbar/analysis_of_comodo_toolbar_by_boclean_standards-t24483.0.html

Xan

4

ty for the link.

5

It looks hijackthis marked the toolbar as nasty and the article you linked mentioned Sunbelt to address it as a questionable toolbar.

Regarding the ASKbar itself I guess SOPHOS analysis could be considered equally relevant.

Ask Toolbar is a legitimate Internet Explorer toolbar. See toolbar.ask.com for more details.

Other considerations of that article pertains the packaging of Safesurf neglecting to address other aspects as per COMODO SafeSurf Toolbar [INFO].

Technically the Safesurf Toolbar package includes both BO protection engine and toolbar component. It is also explicitly described in said way in accordance to the specific implementation that endorses a multi-component approach to address implementation difficulties.

In fact to protect all browsers is necessary to separate the BO protection from the toolbar otherwise the protection would be limited only to the browsers able to install said toolbar (like Comodo SafeSurf Toolbar Beta 0.9.0.1)

Even though the installation explicitly state that the two components are to be regarded as an unique product the user is free to uninstall them separately and eventually retain only one those components whereas it would have been legitimate to provide only a way uninstall the entire SafeSurf package (toolbar component and BO protection component)

Safesurf and CMF are two different products that address BO. Even CMF uses a multi-component approach (GUI + engine). Whereas Safesurf Toolbar offer a mix of features (popup blocking,searching, etc…) that include BO protection.

Whenever or not that article is agreeable it’s up to the readers.

6

Thank you for the responses.

Will the new Safe Surf toolbar also be flagged by scanners? And what can be done to prevent them from being flagged?

7

Well, normally it shouldn’t be detected. They could simply repack the toolbar to make sure it isn’t detected ;D

Xan