Mindspark toolbar/addon for Google Chrome and FireFox.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 9:27 am

I just ran a full system scan using Malwarebytes anti-malware and it found and removed two different malicious tool bar add-ons for Google Chrome made by a company called Mindspark, this company is putting out tool bar add-ons that are nothing but junk programs intended to clutter up your browser and hijack it and then re-direct it to preprogrammed pages where further infections will occur.Several watchdog websites have flagged Mindspark for illegal and malicious activities.The group of add-ons by this company include a coupon finder, add helper which actually redirects your browser to malicious pages and oddly enough a site safety scanner all of which are completely useless and potentially harmful.Manual removal of these tool-bars or add-ons is near impossible unless you know the exact registry values to delete as just using your program manager to delete them will result in a failed deletion due to zero-access being granted to the program manager.The best an easiest way is to use a good anti-virus/anti-malware and do a regular full scan once every two days with a quick scan in between this should minimize your risk of severe infections.FYI, you don't need to even give permission to Mindspark to download the add-on or tool bar they just do it automatically using a drive by kit that grants them access to your browser settings.The best way to stop or minimize the risk of auto tool-bar downloads is keep your browser and all currently installed add-ons up-to-date and disable Java if your using it as Java is a security vulnerability and nearly useless as 99% of all websites use Adobe, Micro-Flash or HTML5 or 6 to display the page to you.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 3:51 am

Very interesting. I will probably be looking to you for computer advice a little later cuz we're thinking about getting the internet setup at our house later. Finally we seem to have a fairly affordable fast/reliable option where we live out in the "boonies" so to speak. Its under $60 a month with a ton of data to use via fiber optics.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:26 am

@jenok, I'd be more than happy to help if I can. Sounds like you got cable based internet instead of land line, I absolutely hate land line based as the line itself is not capable of handling much of a signal so you get a lot slower speed than your paying for.We have AT&T high low speed internet and since dsl is land line based it can not compete with cable based which uses high grade fiber optics which are designed to transmit signal packets a thousand times larger than dsl which gives you a much faster speed.I do not recommend dsl or its big brother adsl because they are both inferior technologies.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:51 am

I haven't got it yet. We have to come up with a $200 installation/equipment fee first then it's $58.99 a month. This is thru our coop electric company. I wish I had realized that we didn't have many choices to begin with and we would've signed up early and only had to pay $100 when they were seeing if enough people were interested. But we weren't sure if we would have the extra money for one and I thought at the time it sounded too expensive so we passed then I start comparing and trying to see what we can get for what price and we can't get any of the "good deals" that I had been seeing advertised. Plus I realized we could drop our Dish service ($80 month) and try to start streaming of course I'll have to figure out how to do that. I'll probably have to buy new TVs before I can do that. The ones we have are ancient. Which is another reason I haven't dropped our Dish yet.Prior to them having that capability our choices were DSL or adding it to DISH/satellite which cost more for way less data which I didn't realize at the time either one requires a phone line so I would have to put one in.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:53 pm

@jenok, yeah we had to pay a $100 dollar installation fee plus purchasing the AT&T brand modem/wireless router for an additional $99 which was a waste of money because the brand they were using as their own was called 2Wire and it really stunk it would completely drop the connection to the outside line and would do this every day and would stay down for hours before finally coming back online.We had to replace that piece of junk a year after we got it because it finally had a critical hardware failure and would not even power on much less attempt to connect to the internet so we got a better brand modem/router for $60 which has way better built in security and supports all major wifi bands such as 802.11 b/g/n with n being the most reliable connection type as it has a longer range than b or g and can block out more kinds of interference from cell phones, cordless home phones and other nearby routers.My xbox-360 can use the n type connection but the family laptop and my sisters net-book only use b or g so I've got my console connected via an ethernet or hard line connection which is way more reliable and a lot faster than even the n type wireless.If you have to go wireless due to modem/router placement I would recommend using the n type if available as more people can connect in your house and you'll get a lot less interference.Don't use the default password printed on the bottom or back of the unit instead try to use a customized 128 bit encrypted password as this will be much safer and a lot harder to crack/hack than the traditional 32 or 64 bit encryption method.Using WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy as your network encryption method is better than not using anything at all though it does have some serious flaws which makes it easy to crack.WAP/WAP2 or Wireless Access Protection is a much more sophisticated method of encrypting your network but not all wireless devices are compatible with this encryption type so if your not sure that all of your wireless devices are WAP compatible just use WEP instead and if you can enable the 128 bit encryption for the password or access key.Combining a high level encryption to the access key with either form of network encryption will greatly improve your network security and privacy.When you finally do get your new service started if you need any help I'm just a PM away.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:01 am

Whoa, you'll have to slow down a bit about 1/5th of that made actual since to me. I'll let you know when we get it. My hubby is usually pretty good at figuring that type of stuff out. He has self taught himself about the computer and net and i'm just to scared of screwing something up so I don't mess with it much. Like when I began on here this was the first forum I had ever been on and couldn't really have told someone exactly what a forum was til I figured this out.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 11:43 am

@jenok, sorry for confusing you, I keep forgetting not everybody is up on the tech talk/lingo.lolI guess you can tell I'm very tech savvy, I've been this way since middle school when I got into the Gifted program for Science, I was taking college level Science classes in middle school so by the time I got into high school the classes they offered weren't a challenge.lolI have a working understanding of computer programming and networking but I wouldn't call myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination.lol