Routine Maintenance Complete

This past Thursday, routine maintenance was performed on every computer in the Computer Learning Center as part of an effort to keep the new machines running smoothly.

CC Cleaner was used to clear out old, unused Internet files and histories, opening up as much as a half-gigabyte of space on some of the hard drives.

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware was used to check for any viruses, spyware or adware on the computers as well. Unlike last time, where multiple machines were infected with adware, this time only two computers had any infected files.

We've also identified the cause of the "infections:" an add-on tool bar called the MyWebSearch toolbar. A Google search of "MyWebSearch virus" returns thousands of results, with all of the users complaining that the toolbar had infected their computers with unwanted files.

Running frequent virus checks is a great way to keep your computer healthy.

We're still trying to figure out who is downloading and installing this toolbar, but in all likelihood it's coming packaged with free game demos downloaded by the kids, just one more reason to always read what you're installing before putting it on your hard drive.

A tip for all of you internet users out there: check your web browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.) for this toolbar. If you see a "MyWebSearch" tool bar underneath the address bar (the place where you type in a website's address), you should probably use MalwareBytes to get rid of it.

It doesn't appear that this adware is dangerously harmful, but it is unwanted, will slow down your computer and could lead to other problems down the road.

A Toolbar Tip

Here's a tip for all websites and programs that offer toolbars: don't download or install them.

While it's true that some of the toolbars from Microsoft's Bing or from Google and Yahoo can make searching easier, they often come with unmentioned side affects.

Installing Yahoo's toolbar, for instance, made the Firefox "Menu Bar" disappear for some reason, making it extremely difficult to remove. Nearly all of these toolbars change computer or Internet settings, usually without the user's knowledge.

Bing, Yahoo and Google will usually just change your default search setting, which isn't really a big deal.

However, during a "computer cleaning period" today, it became clear that some of these other toolbars can be pretty malicious.

Some of the kids download and install free game demos they find online, unaware that they are also installing the toolbars that come along with them. Some of the toolbars, like the Free Lunch Design one that comes along with the popular game Icy Tower, are harmless, can be removed quite easily and don't change your settings.

However, one toolbar called "MyWebSearch" is nothing more than a cover for tons and tons of Adware. In fact, three of the computers had this toolbar installed on them, and a MalwareBytes scan found over 250 infected Adware files on EACH computer.

"MyWebSearch" also changed browser homepages and settings, including default search settings.

The moral of the story remains: make sure you read the dialog box for everything you download, and don't download anything that doesn't come from a trusted source or company.