Controlling IE Addons

Part:   1  2  3  4 

(Continued from previous part...)

GoogleDesktop.exe

Symptom: Google desktop icon showing in the system start bar. It takes a good amount memory. If use Windows Task Manager, you will see:

GoogleDesktop.exe        4,444K
GoogleDesktopCrawl.exe   4,788K
GoogleDesktopIndes.exe   7,140K

HijackThis Report: In the report, I saw this line:

O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Google Desktop Search] 
   "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search\GoogleDesktop.exe"
   /startup

Quick Research: No need to search the Web. GoogleDesktop is well known tool. But we want to remove it to free up memory and CPU.

What I Did:

1. Went to Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, and removed GoogleDesktop.

2. Restarted the computer.

Result: GoogleDesktop is gone.

IE Default Search Settings

Symptom: Unknown.

HijackThis Report: In the report, I saw:

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL
   = http://www.dell4me.com/myway
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL
   = http://www.dell4me.com/myway
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Bar
   = http://red.clientapps.yahoo.com/customize/ie/defaults/sb/ymsgr6
   /*http://www.yahoo.com/ext/search/search.html
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page
   = http://www.dell4me.com/myway

Quick Research: No need to search the Web. We want to remove all those default searching behaviors.

What I Did:

1. Ran HijackThis > Scan the system.

2. On HijackThis scan report, check the above items and click "Fix Checked".

Result: IE Default Search Settings are gone.

Google Toolbar

Symptom: Google Toolbar seems to be a nice tool. It offers the following features:

• Browse by name - Type names instead of URLs in the browser address bar.
• Popup blocker - Block websites from opening pop-up windows.
• SpellCheck - Check spelling of text you type into Web forms.
• WordTranslator - Select English words and get them translated.
• AutoFill - Fill Web forms with a single click.
• AutoLink - Automatically link street address to maps.

However, Google Toolbar does take away space from your browser window to make a "bar" to displays icons for you to invoke its functions.

It is also consuming CPU and memory of your computer.

HijackThis Report: In the report, I saw:

O3 - Toolbar: &Google - {2318C2B1-4965-11d4-9B18-009027A5CD4F} 
   - c:\program files\google\googletoolbar2.dll

Quick Research: No need to search the Web. We want to remove Google bar.

What I Did:

1. Looked at IE > Internet Options > Programs > Manage Addon, and disabled:

   Google Script Object
   Google Toolbar Helper

2. Went to Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, and removed Google Toolbar.

Result: Google Toolbar is not showing up on IE windows.

(Continued on next part...)

Part:   1  2  3  4 

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