[tomrca]

most certainly can! in the past, to be more precise when i was a newbie! at one point i started receiving e-mail from unknown sources. while the actual mail was delivering the virus to my inbox, it would cause the mail to hang for quite some time before completion of delivery. despite that the actual virus commands are only a few kb's.
after i cleaned my pc the virus "swen" i think.. i e-mailed every contact in my address book ad told them that they just may be infected with an e-mail virus....
after that it all stopped

[evilfantasy]

email would include the internet........

@Spleenharvester Yes it is the paid version which is installing the toolbar, there are rumors that the free version will begin installing it later in the year.

[Albert Lionheart]

The answer is to stop buying the thing, surely?

[evilfantasy]

The toolbar is part of the integrated Link Scanner in the new 8.0 suite. - Funny the toolbar wasn't needed with the bata version.......

You can get the link scanner without installing AVG. I have used the standalone for about 2-3 months since installing the AVG 8.0 beta.

During install if I remember correctly you can choose to install the pro version which is a 15 day trial. It will revert to the lite version after that. I actually like Link Scanner better than McAfee Site Advisor because it is much more reliable but I still have both installed. They compliment each other well.

LinkScanner Lite integrates with major search engines to check search results for a variety of online threats before you click. When you search with LinkScanner Lite on guard, you get advance warning of:

* Exploits
* Hacked pages
* Phishing and fraud scams
* Malicious lure sites

Exploit Prevention Labs Homepage
LinkScanner Pro - Commercial
LinkScanner Lite - Free

If you would rather not install Link Scanner you can use LinkScanner Online to check any link.

[Blind Dragon]

You guys read a lot of logs, what percentage of people would you say already have a yahoo toolbar. Almost every log I look at has yahoo toolbars installed already. My log does NOT but I am talking out of say the last 100 logs you looked at.

[Albert Lionheart]

Almost all of them. The systems without them are universally those belonging to teccies who know about yahoo - and fix their own systems, All the yahoo toolbars are on user systems where they have not got a clue what toolbars do except make the browser look important!

[Daveskater]

Very good points there, chaps. A lot of logs have the Yahoo toolbar on them and quite a few have the Google one either as well or instead of.

I expect it even comes with some manufactured PC's. I don't know what manufacturers do put Yahoo toolbar on, but I expect some do.

[evilfantasy]

For me it seems to be about half and half I think, never thought about it statistically.

IE6 - Almost always

IE7 and Firefox users seem to be more inclined to not use a toolbar.

[Daveskater]

That sounds about right, mate. I like FF the way it is and don't want to spoil it with toolbars

Not other than the built-in bookmarks one, anyway

[Albert Lionheart]

One trick seems to be to install the toolbars and then disable them. This seems to stop any further sneaky attempts to put them back again, perhaps?

[Daveskater]

That might work actually mate, good thinking. It won't ask to install something that's already there Or would it

[Albert Lionheart]

It seems to work - I don't have any at all. But then I always was underpriviledged in my early years.

[evilfantasy]

Sounds like it should work, but I'm not gonna try it to see

[Daveskater]

Same here, I keep my PC toolbar free hehe.

[Howard]

No toolbars here either. Mind you, I`m very minimalistic and run as few bits of software as possible.

See the attached HJT log for confirmation. Note: I don`t recommend the average user to be so minimalistic.

Regards Howard

[wektech]

I have both the google and yahoo toolbars, I actually use the google toolbar quite a bit throughout the day. The Yahoo toolbar I use only for mail notifications and a link to answers!, but I do use it. They do not bother me and I can always just remove them from view if I need to. I have yet to see any other iexplorer toolbar I would install. I use the web developer toolbar in firefox and would gladly give up the other toolbars to keep it if I had to choose between them.

[evilfantasy]

StumbleUpon Toolbar FTW!!!!!!

I have nothing against Google, Yahoo or their toolbars and have used both in the past. I just don't need them since switching to FF. If I had to go back to IE I would install them again.

[Albert Lionheart]

There was an issue a few months ago with a already installed toolbar conflicting with a windows update. MS fixed it so fast it was barely noticable but since then I have not used tham and tell anyone who asks the same thing.