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Wake up, Windows users. This is what you "agreed to" when you installed Hotbar: "Information you might consider private or personally identifiable ... is then transmitted to Hotbar and automatically stored in Hotbar's databases."
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T e c h n o f i l e
'Hotbar' spyware program bedevils Windows and should be removed


July 20, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   I've been getting an increasing number of complaints about specific problems with Windows, especially Windows XP. Most of these complaints seemed mysterious, but I believe I've found the cause of many of them.
   The problem for many Windows users appears to be a program they installed called Hotbar. In some cases, users with afflicted PCs might not even realize Hotbar was installed; they may have naively assumed that it was part of Windows. In other cases, children or others in the family might have installed Hotbar without their knowledge or consent.
   In every case, the solution is to remove Hotbar entirely. I'll tell you how shortly.
   Hotbar is a program that monitors the Internet activities of all users of the Windows PCs where it is installed. The company that markets Hotbar, Hotbar.com Inc. at http://hotbar.com, explains in detail what Hotbar does -- it's an appalling thing to read -- but I doubt that many computer users looked at that document before they installed the program.
   Hotbar works with Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, and affects Windows computers only. (There is no Apple Macintosh version, and in fact there is very little spyware of any kind for the Mac.)
   Users apparently think Hotbar is making their Internet browsing or e-mail use more enjoyable because Hotbar lets them color mail and apply a skin (a photographic overlay) to program windows. But it's actually monitoring the surfing habits of all users and reporting this information back to a central site so it can be marketed to anyone who wants to buy it.
   Problems attributed to Hotbar include crashing, slowness and other misbehavior in Windows, especially Windows XP.
   What prompted my interest in Hotbar were reports that popup-window blockers I've recommended didn't work right or didn't work at all on some Windows computers. This made no sense at first -- after all, I had checked one of these blockers, WebWasher, in all versions of Windows and found it to be exceptionally adept. I've used it myself for years, and I never get popups on my Windows PCs.
   In checking for reports of problems with popup blockers, I came across a flood of complaints about Hotbar. One of the most common problems, according to Hotbar ex-users, is the reappearance of popup windows despite the presence of good popup-blocking software.
   I'm not able to tell you this from my own use -- after all, I'm not a Hotbar user and never will be -- but others have suggested that Hotbar allows some popups to get past the blocking software. These might be Hotbar's own popup windows or ones that it guides past the blocking software for advertising or tracking reasons. I don't know for sure.
   It's a sorry story. Software that does this sort of thing is just plain invasive. Yet when you go to the Hotbar site and read the EULA (the so-called End User Legal Agreement, as if it were actually some kind of legally binding document to those who never see it), you see some startling admissions about what Hotbar does.
   Here are excerpts from the Hotbar site:
   "For every Web page you view ... the Hotbar software transmits and stores the following information from your computer to Hotbar: Your IP Address, which may include a domain name; the full URL of the Web page you are visiting; general information about your browser; general information about your computer's operating system; your Hotbar cookie number ... and the date and time the above information is logged."
   E-mail you send to anyone else is also affected. The recipients can be tracked, and hidden code within the mail "may also retrieve information from our servers (such as text and/or banner promotions) which will, in such case, also appear in the e-mail sent and viewed by the recipient in question." Apparently this means Hotbar's central site is able to retrieve information from the recipients of your mail, too.
   There's more. According to the Hotbar EULA:

   "When you enter information on a Web page (e.g., when you complete an online registration form or sign up for a contest), the operator of the Web site may insert that information into its URL for that or the next page. This information often appears after a question mark ("?") in the URL, although it can appear in other places.
   "This means that your name, your address, your e-mail address, or similar information you might consider private or personally identifiable which you enter into a Web page sometimes becomes part of a URL that is then transmitted to Hotbar and automatically stored in Hotbar's databases. This can also occur with words, topics, products, or phrases you enter into search engines -- whether those engines are provided by the Service itself or found elsewhere on the Web -- while using the Service. Hotbar has no control over what information third party Web sites put into their URLs or where they put it, but any information in each URL is collected and stored by Hotbar when you are using the Service."

   Regardless of how scary such "agreements" are, you must realize that no one has taken away your right to control what comes into your home or office. You are in charge of your computer. You should remove all spyware as well as any other software that seems to be spyware and has no known useful purpose.
   To do that, install -- and use regularly! -- a trustworthy spyware remover. Two that I've successfully used are Ad-Aware and Spybot. Ad-Aware is my favorite, but many readers have written to praise Spybot. (I'm a recent Spybot user, so I don't have much experience with it.)
   Get Ad-Aware from www.lavasoftusa.com. The free version (called simply "Ad-Aware") is what I recommend. There are no performance advantages to the versions that you have to pay for. Get Spybot from http://spybot.eon.net.au. It's also free. You can install both programs if you want. They won't conflict with each other.
   Former Hotbar users say Spybot is the best way to get rid of Hotbar. Run the program and follow the prompts. Make sure you remove all other spyware that shows up on your PC.
   If you have Internet-surfing kids, a careless spouse or loose-fingered personal surfing habits and haven't ever checked your family's Windows PC for spyware, you'll probably be shocked at the number of spyware programs Ad-Aware and Spybot will ferret out. Get rid of all of them.
   Every e-mail user knows about the No. 1 Internet annoyance, spam, and most Windows users should realize that viruses are a big danger. But I doubt that many Windows users realize spyware is so prevalent. It's time to take full control of your Windows computer. Getting rid of programs that take away your privacy is a good way to start.