| Name | SendFilesFree |
| Type | PUP, Toolbar |
| Short Description | An ad-supported toolbar that may display ads, slow down PC and other suspicious activities on the user PC. |
| Symptoms | Slow down user PC, Administer pop-ups, load on browser start-up |
| Distribution Method | Bundling or online download. |
| Detection tool | Download Malware Removal Tool, to See If Your System Has Been Affected By SendFilesFree |
SendFilesFree is a suspcious toolbar that is considered a Potentially Unwanted Program or a PUP by security researchers. This program may administer advertisements, modify the user’s browser home page and new tab page, changing them to Ask.com related ones and employ cookies to collect user information. Such information may be used afterwards to display third-party advertised content to the user in the form of ad-supported search results, pop-ups, online banners, highlighted text and others. What is more, the application may be indirectly dangerous to the user because it may advertise malicious sites that are either scamming or malware infested.
How Is SendFilesFree Toolbar Distributed
The program is available for download from the website sendfilesfree.com and it is advertised as a helpful toolbar for your browser that will help share files in the cloud, convert user files and also share via mail.
The app may also be advertised through several different sites, however it may also be included as a bundled download. Bundling is a very common product offering strategy that includes adding programs such as SendFilesFree as ‘extras’ in the Setup installer of a reputable program that is widely download. Third-party software providing websites that offer such famous programs that are often being downloaded attach other apps to them to ‘push’ them into the market. However there are these suspicious third-party sites that also attack ad-supported applications such as this one which may infect the user PC with viruses and may slow it down significantly or even crash it.
SendFilesFree Toolbar –More About It
Once the SendFilesFree browser extension has been run on your computer, it may begin to collect user different user data, as described in their privacy policy. What is more, the product is being provided by the infamous Mindspark Interactive – a company that is well known for developing toolbars and regarding them as unsafe.
The toolbar may also create and modify different registry entries that give it certain permissions to manager different processes within your system. Such permissions may make it harder to manually remove, and may prompt it to run actively on system start up.
What is more about these toolbars is that they are created with the sole purpose of displaying advertised third-party content. Such advertised sites may pose different dangers to the user PC. For once, users may be misled into clicking on web sites that redirect them into registering to use a free trial of a product and providing their personal information or even financial data. Such data may be distributed for profit to serve the interests of cyber criminals.
Another danger for the user, besides scamming sites is the danger of being redirected to a malicious web site that may or may not infect his PC with a dangerous malware infection. Malware infections are devastating because they may either delete important files and make the user PC crash, encrypt user files and extort him/her for their decryption or simply collect all of the user information and sell it on the black market. Either way, ad-supported programs such as SendFilesFree are regarded as unsafe and security researchers strongly advise for their removal.
Removing SendFilesFree Toolbar Completely
In case you feel convinced that this software should be removed from your computer, it is advisable to make sure that you follow the step-by-step instruction manual below. Also, bear in mind that you should scan your computer with a reputable anti-malware program in order to detect whether or not your device has been affected by SendFilesFree toolbar. By doing so, you also ensure that you have active protection against any future intrusions caused by potentially unwanted programs or malicious domains.
In case the tutorial below does not assist you with the removal and you still see pop-ups, you should try the following instructions.
Step 1: Remove/Uninstall SendFilesFree in Windows
Here is a method in few easy steps to remove that program. No matter if you are using Windows 8, 7, Vista or XP, those steps will get the job done. Dragging the program or its folder to the recycle bin can be a very bad decision. If you do that, bits and pieces of the program get left behind, and that can lead to unstable work of your PC, mistakes with the file type associations and other unpleasant activities. The proper way to get a program off your computer is to Uninstall it. To do that:
Select the program that you want to remove, and press “Uninstall” (fig.3).
Follow the instructions above and you will successfully uninstall SendFilesFree.
Step 2: Remove SendFilesFree from your browser
Remove a toolbar from Mozilla Firefox
Remove a toolbar from Google Chrome
Remove a toolbar from Internet Explorer
Remove a toolbar from Safari
Select the “Add-ons” icon from the menu
Select SendFilesFree and click “Remove”
After SendFilesFree is removed, restart Mozilla Firefox by closing it from the red “X” in the top right corner and start it again.
Select SendFilesFree to remove, and then click ‘Disable’. A pop-up window will appear to inform you that you are about to disable the selected toolbar, and some additional toolbars might be disabled as well. Leave all the boxes checked, and click ‘Disable’.
After SendFilesFree has been removed, restart Internet Explorer by closing it from the red ‘X’ in the top right corner and start it again.
Open the drop menu by clicking on the sprocket icon in the top right corner.
From the drop menu select ‘Preferences’
In the new window select ‘Extensions’
Click once on SendFilesFree
Click ‘Uninstall’
A pop-up window will appear asking for confirmation to uninstall SendFilesFree. Select ‘Uninstall’ again, and the SendFilesFree will be removed.
Step 3: Remove SendFilesFree automatically by downloading an advanced anti-malware program.
To clean your computer you should download an updated anti-malware program on a safe PC and then install it on the affected computer in offline mode. After that you should boot into safe mode and scan your computer to remove all SendFilesFree associated objects.
