For some of you whom might not be aware, mybrowserbar.com is installed together with pdfforge – the open source pdf creator.
I reformatted my PC recently, reinstall PDFCreator and had an unpleasant surprise as my browser is directing me to mybrowserbar.com which made me feel l was infected by malware.
To remove mybrowserbar from your browser is simple, go to your control panel, choose Programs and Features (in Vista) and click uninstall/remove PDFCreator. For Windows XP, select Add or Remove programs.
As the behavior of this software is very much malware like it causes an uproar among users who have been using the open source PDFcreator and was caught by surprise with this development.
The software redirects certain types of browser traffic to www.searchsettings.com, which is a linkbait/parking-type site.
The PDFCreator Toolbar is apparently implemented using “mybrowserbar”. As per their terms of service, they indicate:
f) modify your Microsoft Internet Explorer and/or Mozilla Firefox browser settings for the default search engine, address bar search, “DNS error” page, “404 error” page, and new tab page to facilitate more informative responses as determined by The Toolbar;
Would it be safe to continue using this software?
Well, a short answer is Yes. And the good news is you can install PDFcreator without mybrowserbar. Mybrowserbar is installed because we normally would just click next, next and next till the end during installation. So don’t assume it’s the normal yada yada and just click the next button right till the end. There are two places where you should pause and untick.
First untick, yahoo browser Add On
Second untick, default Custom installation, untick Browser Add On then click next to finish the installation.
This method work fine for me and it should for you, now can continue to enjoy using your PDFcreator.
In Firefox go to ADD-ONS: deactivate "Search-Settings Plugin" (description is: that it would protect your search plugins! haha!!!). mybrowserbar (this crappy thing) has been gone! ;O)
Excellent way of removing the super annoying Mybrowsebar thing!! Thanks
Thanks for the tip. I found your site via Google. When I browsed to one of my websites, this stupid thing kept redirecting me. It took me a minute or two to realize my site was down. I would have known instantly if not for this stupid product.
I had the same problem, only I had never installed PDFForge. After searching and searching, I found that another culprit is something called "Search settings 1.2.2" (or 1.2.3). After I removed that from within "add/remove programs" I am no longer being redirected to "mybrowserbar." In fact, I tested it just now by typing www.nonexistentwebsite.com into my browser, and got a good old-fashioned "can't find the server" error message.
Just wanted to share the fact that there is more than one culprit involved in this browser hijack. :)
@CrankyBeach
Thanks for sharing with us another cause for browser hijack.
Wilson.
Thaaaannnnkkksssss !
:-)))
There is no need to remove pdf creator on IE8, just go to Tools > Manage add-ons . So, disable Search Settings IE.
Regards
Thank you very much. I made the mistake of clicking through during the install and ended up getting redirected to mybrowserbar.com for search and websites not found. Thanks to the tips here, I uninstalled both the browserbar and "Search Setting 1.23" and I am back to normal.
If it helps anyone else, I got it installed when I installed Youtube downloader. Luckily Glary utilities has an IE add-on manager that makes it easy to find and fix.
Thanks, this thing operates under the guise of search settings plugin with the description that it prevents default search settings! Idiots. This thing has been annoying me from a few days and I was not able to find a way to uninstall it until I finally googled it and reached this page.
Thanks a lot for any informations