How to know if a toolbar (like Google's) is tracking you when it's disabled

Filed under: Security, Troubleshooting

A recent tip suggested that even when disabled the Google Toolbar sends data to Google without the user knowing. After doing some digging I've found this is only the case if, while using IE8 the user fails to restart the browser after disabling the toolbar from the "Manage Add-ons" window.

This is certainly possible, but the browser does warn the user to restart immediately after saving the changes. In fact, going to the add-ons screen is the slow way to disable the toolbar -- the easiest way is to click Tools>Toolbars then uncheck the Google toolbar. This stops it from sending the information back to Google immediately.

So, while I don't believe Google is being nefarious, after the news of their recent hacking and some of the reasons it was possible, it's a good time to talk about how to monitor what sort of information is being sent through tools like the Google Toolbar.

Continue reading How to know if a toolbar (like Google's) is tracking you when it's disabled

How to know if a toolbar (like Google's) is tracking you when it's disabled originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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