| Name | Desktop Bar |
| Type | Adware, PUP |
| Short Description | The application may generate advertisements in the browser – banners, pop-ups, in-text ads. |
| Symptoms | Advertisements with text similar to ‘Ads by Desktop Bar’. |
| Distribution Method | Bundling, shareware download pages. |
| Detection tool | Download Malware Removal Tool, to See If Your System Has Been Affected By Desktop Bar |
A suspicious program has appeared going by the name Desktop Bar. Security researchers classify it as a potentially unwanted program and are convinced this app is ad-supported and closely cooperates with third-parties for profit-generating purposes. Desktop bar employs different tracking technologies to collect personal and non-personal user information. Also, the application developers include a statement that they may share this information with other parties such as affiliates and contractors to some extent.
Desktop Bar – How Did I Get It?
There are couple of ways by which you could have installed this application. It is possible that you have clicked on an online advertisement that may have redirected you to Desktop Bar’s download web link. Another way to get it is directly from their website. However, this does not exclude the most profitable marketing strategy that such apps use to distribute – bundling. It involves the insertion of PUPs like Desktop Bar in other free software Setups. This marketing tool is being employed by third-party software providers that offer a lot of free programs.
More About Desktop Bar
After being installed on your machine, the application may consume a lot of the PCs memory. We have attempted to install it on a Windows 7 virtual machine with 3 GB ram and 60 GB of HDD space along with. As soon as the installer started, a command prompt window appeared, saying the program is too big to fit memory as seen below. This was in contradiction with the 2.50 MB file size of the program setup.
More so, we have examined further the site that is advertising the app, only to establish that the program may have a paid and ad-supported version. Ad-supported applications may cooperate with any third parties with the one and only purpose of profit making. So, bottom line is that the creators may make money either from pay-per-click schemes or by receiving users`s funds for an app that may or may not work.
Also, when we have looked into the privacy policy on the site, it clearly stated that they may or may not collect and store both personal and non-personal user information.
More to it than that, this application is associated with third-parties, and they are the main reason experts regard such programs as unwanted. Some of the third-party sites may scam users out of their money using different schemes, and some are even reported to infect PCs with malware. What is more, the software employs tracking technologies to display different advertisements based on a user’s most visited websites and most sought interests.
Removing Desktop Bar
To remove Desktop Bar, it is essential to take immediate actions. One good way to do it is by following the step-by-step tutorial below to manually uninstall the software. Also, make sure you download and install an advanced anti-malware protection. This is because programs, like Desktop Bar, may leave leftover files within your %appdata% or %temp% directories as well as values and keys in the Windows Registry Editor.
1. Remove/Uninstall Desktop Bar 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 Desktop Bar.
2. Remove Desktop Bar 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 Desktop Bar and click “Remove”
After Desktop Bar is removed, restart Mozilla Firefox by closing it from the red “X” in the top right corner and start it again.
Select Desktop Bar 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 Desktop Bar 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 Desktop Bar
Click ‘Uninstall’
A pop-up window will appear asking for confirmation to uninstall Desktop Bar. Select ‘Uninstall’ again, and the Desktop Bar will be removed.
3. Use an advanced anti-malware program to scan your computer for any left-over objects such as registry entries and other files after uninstall.
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 Desktop Bar associated objects
