WARNING: JUNK AHEAD
Jane Hoskyn puts the boot into tech villains, jargon-spouting companies and software stuffed with junk
Junk offender: Auslogics Browser Care
‘Download Now! No adware, no spyware, no toolbars’ proclaims the Auslogics Browser Care web page ( www. snipca.com/22902). It forgets to add ‘Just a browser-hijacking search engine, upgrade pop-up, unwanted Auslogics program and hidden registry junk’.
Browser Care claims to clean browser plug-ins, extensions and junk data from your PC for free. We showed you how in a Workshop in Issue 474. But soon after, it began stuffing its own installer with rubbish – including files and folders that blighted my computer weeks after I thought I’d cleared them. Its new version 4.1 carries more PUPS than ever.
Browser Care despair
When I tested Browser Care in the summer, a couple of months after our Workshop, it installed a PUP called Boostspeed. I removed Browser Care and Boostspeed and cleaned my PC. Three months later, Malwarebytes Adwcleaner found five new ‘threats’ on my PC – all Auslogics files and folders. I removed them.
This week I tested Browser Care version 4.1 to see if Auslogics had cleaned up its act. It had not. Au contraire, Rodney.
I clicked Custom Install and unticked Install Boostspeed. The next screen, new in version 4.1, invited me to ‘Set Yahoo as your homepage and default search engine’ (see screenshot). I unticked it and then had two buttons to choose from: Decline and ‘Agree and Install’. I clicked Decline, and Browser Care installed. If I’d clicked ‘Agree and Install’, the PUPS would have installed anyway – even after I’d turned them down. You may think unticking the PUPS was enough to opt out, but it’s not.
There’s more. The Finish screen had a tiny pre-ticked box, for Auslogics Driver Updater. This time, unticking was enough to opt out. When I clicked Finish, a gaudy advert called Giveaway Club opened in my browser, and a pop-up appeared urging me to Improve Performance Now. If I had clicked it, I’d have unwittingly upgraded to a paid-for version of Browser Care.
To find so much junk bundled with a program that seemed genuinely useful for cleaning your PC is shocking. Auslogics began 2016 by impressing us, and ends it as the worst junk offender of the year.
The Government is asking phone companies to introduce software that prevents drivers from being distracted by calls and texts In Spring, the fixed penalty for using a phone while driving will double to £200 31 per cent of drivers admit to having used their phone while driving