You know, this is getting tiresome. These last few months we’ve seen several respectable security programs and some non-respectable take the route into including toolbars with their products. We’ve seen Lavasoft in discussions with Ask.com, Webroot’s SpySweeper including a toolbar and then ZoneLabs doing the same aswell (although some are not the full toolbar, but still pre-checked).

Is this a true sign of ethics going out the window and money being their main priority? Some argue this is the case.

Let’s take the latest application to follow this route - AVG/Grisoft. Once a leading company, and in many eyes it still is, AVG 8.0 comes bundled with Yahoo Search Bar. Although that is not a bad toolbar compared to the Ask.com toolbars, it raises the question as I have stated above …

“Is this is a true sign of ethics going out of the window and money being their main priority?“.

I remember when we blogged about CCleaner getting Yahoo on board. And as helpers, we have gotten around that by adding a simple sentance in our canned speeches. However, this time it is different.

When installing AVG 8.0 it doesn’t tell you that it’s a Yahoo Toolbar thingy, but more like an AVG Security Toolbar . Eh? Just take a look at Corrine’s blog post about this at Security Garden for screenshots.

And that’s not all. Reports suggest the toolbar is installed even when the option to include the toolbar is UN-checked. Discussions about have been popping up left, right and center.

I hope Grisoft resolve this as if they do not, we will certainly not be recommending this application as we do here. It’s just not right! Air your views about this in our forum. They are very much welcome.

(Thanks to Corrine for the tip-off)