If you have been using computers for any length of time, you have probably had some run-ins with the irritating Ask Toolbar.
Without your explicit permission, it probably installed itself along with some other program you downloaded and then took it upon itself to change your Home Page and Default Search Engine, leaving you wondering what in the world had just happened.
Well, I have some good news to report about the Ask Toolbar: The way it stealthily makes unwanted changes to your computer have finally prompted Microsoft to classify the Ask Toolbar as malware and add it to the list of programs that will automatically be removed by Microsoft’s security tools.
Unfortunately, there is also bad news: Microsoft’s ban will only apply to old versions of the Ask Toolbar because Ask agreed to change the latest version of the toolbar so that it will no longer hijack your Home Page and Default Search Engine.
In a nutshell, that means is if your PC has an old version of the Ask toolbar already installed, it will be removed the next time your Microsoft security software is updated.
The bad news is it will still be possible to unknowingly install the new version of the toolbar along with some free software downloads so you’ll still be faced with the task of removing the Ask Toolbar from your system.