Flash plugin + Yahoo toolbar trap

WARNING: A long post! But maybe interesting too.

I am surfing. Suddenly IE7b2 says something about flash plugin crashed (active x control) and I close IE. OK. Because I do so much web programming I already reinstalled Flash for several times for many other reasons, so I thought there was some old plugin that causes errors with IE7. I went to the Macromedia flash download through Microsoft add-on Marketplace page. And there they offer tadaaaam:

Flash plugin with yahoo toolbar?????????? What the ....? Ok there is the checkmark for toolbar. Phew... I uncheck. Click download and....

NOTHING HAPPENS!

Back, the same procedure, click download.....

NOTHING...

Ok server is probably busy, lets see if I wait...

NOTHING...

For fun (and my big mistake ) I left the yahoo toolbar option checked and clicked download....

IT STARTED DOWNLOADING IMMEDIATELY! And asked me if I want to install (read this carefully): Flash plugin Active X control. I said yes. It didn't ask anything else, and guess what (I expected that of course) Yahoo toolbar activex and BHO were installed! In add/remove there is Yahoo toolbar - but cannot be uninstalled!!!! Hey is this some spyware or what? Luckily i had my restore point ready (I always do when playing with installations - just in case) so I wasn't too frustrated , but more annoyed. Guess what - Flash plugin can be uninstalled, but not the Yahoo. No no.

No more mister nice guy. I could go into registry and exterminate the vermin in no time and delete the friggin yt.dll, but I wanted to play their game. To beat them with their own weapon - so the victory is sweeter.
I went to toolbar.yahoo.com and INSTALLED again their toolbar. It installed three things (of course why to keep things simple) - antispyware, installer and toolbar. Now I can uninstall from add/remove - I did first antispyware, then installer (it is so weird - first some stupid message box about some dll and then RESET!) and after reset I removed toolbar too. Both Activex and BHO are gone too. Yahooooo!

Now an ordinary user who didn't uncheck yahoo toolbar by mistake on MACROMEDIA FLASH PLUGIN DOWNLOAD PAGE will immediately end up with:
1. Removable plugin (like it should be)
2. Unremovable Yahoo toolbar (activex + BHO).

Person who did uncheck the Yahoo toolbar will wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. and then after a few minutes it will finally install the plugin. I discovered that by accident after this whole story already had happened. Do I have to mention that the page that actually starts the download is the ordinary page with the MISSING PICTURE (yes the red x) and no sign whatsoever that something is waiting in the background or is going to happen. The passive plain page. Disgrace. After the plugin is installed there is some flash that replaces the red x missing picture and says that the flash is installed successfully (that happened on my second attempt). OK it works now. Finally.

I find this bundling toolbars (Google does that with DivX package) very annoying. I really don't have anything (efective ) against Yahoo or Google toolbars. I was using Google toolbar for years, but why on earth would they push it so hard? A small checkmark in some installation and you immediately end up with Activex control, BHO, many settings, MS antispyware alerts etc... I just don like it. Keep the popular things free of other popular things. Who says that I need them or want them together?

I bet many people ended up with several toolbars and BHOs that they didn't want or never use. Just because of the marketing bull.

BTW Ie7b2 can easily disable any activex, but cannot Delete it. There is a button, but it is grayed out.

Cheers,

 

I have not upgraded to acrobat reader 7 because it wants to install the Yahoo toolbar.

 

i have acrobat reader 7 without yahoo toolbar. you can choose not to install yahoo toolbar.

 

Yes you usually can do without the bundled software, but I have a DivX 6.0 installation with Google toolbar that sometimes installs regardless of your unchecking. I did it twice and was sure I had unchecked it. They abuse my bandwith in the first place! I want to download divx install not divxinstall with google toolbar! If you know what I mean.

Cheers,

 

they might have changed it. when they first released reader 7, th un-checked the yahoo toolbar, and it still said it was downloading, so I cancelled the installation and have not tried again.