Thursday, October 20, 2005
The Toolbar = no spyware
I recently had an email from a user reporting that their antivirus software [kaspersky] was reporting that the web accessibility toolbar contained malware: called "AdWare.Win32.Accessibility.a", naturally I was concerned and investigated this. I could not find any information about "AdWare.Win32.Accessibility.a" and kaspersky could not provide any. After an exchange of emails with Kaspersky support team they sent me an email saying:
"Any legal program could be recognized as an Adware, if it is not harmful, but has some characteristics of adware in it self and can't do any thing with it. It's technically impossible to extract modules, responsible for detecting adware programs from Anti-Virus and change them. The only solution in this case for users - to set the exclusions for this program. That is the explanation. Best regards, Kizorkin Dmitry Technical Support Service Kaspersky Labs"So as stated in the toolbar documentation: The Toolbar does not contain any adware or spyware. But please if you do have any issues report them to me and I will investigate them steven.faulkner@nils.org.au. Also be aware that some antivirus sofwtare may flag an issue when toolbar functions are used that insert javascript into the page you are testing. - posted by steve faulkner @ 3:39 pm, The Toolbar = no spyware: permanent link
