A question on "Enable third-party browser extensions"

In IE,
Tools/Internet Options/Advanced:
'Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart)'

Question: if you uncheck it does that prevent third party toolbars (like the
Google toolbar) from being installed.

What exactly are third party browser extensions?

Should that be turned off?

tvfun

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:45:41 GMT, "tvfun" <> wrote:

>In IE,
>Tools/Internet Options/Advanced:
>'Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart)'
##########################
I don't see that in IE5.5 but here is something on it.

http://department.monm.edu/is/fac-staff/keep-clean.htm

#6 a little more than half way down the page.
donnie.

donnie

Thank you!
"donnie" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:45:41 GMT, "tvfun" <> wrote:
>
> >In IE,
> >Tools/Internet Options/Advanced:
> >'Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart)'
> ##########################
> I don't see that in IE5.5 but here is something on it.
>
> http://department.monm.edu/is/fac-staff/keep-clean.htm
>
> #6 a little more than half way down the page.
> donnie.

tvfun

In response to their recomendation I unchecked "Enable third-party browser
extensions". It said this requires a reboot. I did so. Upon reboot it was
back to checked again!

I repeated the process and it happened again. Some piece of spyware must be
doing this on bootup.

I also suspect that something similar is happening with respect to "Install
on demand". Could some piece of malware turn "Install on demand" silently,
install itself and then turn "Install on demand" back off? I suspect so as
I've had any number of programs install themselves on my machine even though
that has been unchecked for months. I'm not talking just browser extensions
here I'm talking full programs.

BTW I had bought Norton Anti-Virus about 9 months ago and was running it's
thingie at startup. The other day when I decided to look at this issue again
in depth I noticed Norton's thing was no longer running at startup and
furthermore when I try to start it manually it won't start! Something has
"knocked it out".

Both SpyBot search and destroy and Addaware (which I have been running once
a week or so) mentioned that they could in theory interfere with anti-virus
stuff so it could be one of those two but I don't know.

I must admit I am starting to lose trust in Windows. It's one thing after
another. Install this and it breaks that, fix one thing but it's broken
again later. It seems fundimentally insecure - especially anything to do
with "Active X". Windows crashes on my machine about every 2 days. The MAC I
mentioned in another post has not crashed YET.

"donnie" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:45:41 GMT, "tvfun" <> wrote:
>
> >In IE,
> >Tools/Internet Options/Advanced:
> >'Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart)'
> ##########################
> I don't see that in IE5.5 but here is something on it.
>
> http://department.monm.edu/is/fac-staff/keep-clean.htm
>
> #6 a little more than half way down the page.
> donnie.

tvfun

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 18:41:52 GMT, "tvfun" <> wrote:

>I repeated the process and it happened again. Some piece of spyware must be
>doing this on bootup.
##############################
Here are the steps I would take if that were my machine.
1) Go through the registry.
HKLM,Software,Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Run
HKCU same path
Delete any values that could be spyware/trojan. If you're not sure
search the entry on google. Whatever that thing is that keeps
reproducing is in the registry somewhere. The registry has a search
tool just like the OS does.
2) Disable ActiveX, javascript and active scripting in IE.
3) Uncheck anything that's not needed in msconfig. Whatever keeps
coming back is probably started in the registry
4) Look for unwanted entries in autoexecnt.bat, config.sys, win.ini
and any other system file that may have a conection.
5) If you insist on using norton, make sure that you update the dat
files first. I'm assume you know how to do that. If not just say so.
donnie.

donnie