Greyware and the Babylon Toolbar.

With this post, we are going to delve into an area of software that is not necessarily malware, but is involved in some questionable practices. And I can think of no better piece of software to use as an example then the Babylon Toolbar.

The Babylon Toolbar is part of a computer dictionary and translation program that goes by the name Babylon. Useful? Quite possibly, but the trouble starts when you get into the toolbar which is also installed with other software as an add-on.

Once you have installed the Babylon toolbar, it changes your homepage to the Babylon search engine. It also adds the Babylon search engine to your computer and sets itself as the default search engine. Not only that, but it makes it very hard to change any of what it changes back to the way you had it before.

This Babylon Toolbar... sounds like you would not want it, right? Well, this puts us in the area of what is known in the trade as "grayware." Software that is not malicious, but is engaged in some rather questionable practices to get it installed or to change something after it has been installed. And while it is easy to inadvertently install the Babylon Toolbar, it is very hard to remove it. Grayware software is officially classified under the acronym PUP or Potentially Unwanted Software. This name is used in order to distinguish between malware and greyware, although both names have come into common use.

To remove the Babylon toolbar in particular, I recommend using a tool designed to remove invasive toolbars such as the Avast! Browser Cleaner, or AdwCleaner by Xplode.

Thank You for reading this post. As always, I invite readers to comment below with any questions or comments.