Freshy Toolbar
Posted: December 23, 2013
Threat Metric
The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:
Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.
Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.
Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.
Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.
% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.
Ranking: | 929 |
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Threat Level: | 5/10 |
Infected PCs: | 21,552 |
First Seen: | December 23, 2013 |
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Last Seen: | October 16, 2023 |
OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
The Freshy Toolbar is a Potentially Unwanted Program that modifies your browser for redirecting you to Conduit.com, a general search engine domain. Malware researchers have had past encounters with Conduit.com and don't rate it as a threat, but do warn that you usually will be safer than otherwise if you remove the Freshy Toolbar and other Conduit-brand products from your browser. Allowing the Freshy Toolbar to remain on your browser is essentially the same as allowing a third party company to determine what sites your browser visits, which is a bad practice both for overall online stability and for the essential online safety of your computer.
A Fresh Batch of an Old Browser Hijacker
The Freshy Toolbar is marketed as a useful browser add-on that provides the 'best' website content, desktop notifications and other minor features. However, this generic marketing fluff simply is an excuse to allow the Freshy Toolbar to redirect you to Conduit's search site, which is often promoted by a wide and rotating series of browser toolbars. After its installation, the Freshy Toolbar hijacks your default search engine and in some cases, also your homepage. The predictable consequence is being unable to change your browser's settings to use other search engines besides Conduit.com.
While malware researchers frown on these kinds of non-consensual traffic 'adjustments,' they only categorize the Freshy Toolbar as a PUP and a browser hijacker. The Freshy Toolbar doesn't make direct attacks against your computer's security and shouldn't cause any direct exposure to hostile Web pages of its own free will. However, that still leaves open opportunities for search results gotten through the Freshy Toolbar causing security problems due to Conduit's haphazard attitude towards online security.
Getting that Fresh Taste out of Your Mouth
A Freshy Toolbar may not be on the same footing as a Trojan or other type of threat software, but that doesn't make installing the Freshy Toolbar any less of a bad idea. Browser add-ons without any direct and highly observable benefits usually should be culled as part and parcel of keeping your PC optimized. More importantly than that, browser add-ons that determine where your browser goes like the Freshy Toolbar always should be considered more of a drawback than anything else.
Due to the Conduit toolbar family's recorded inclinations for avoiding deletion, removing the Freshy Toolbar isn't necessarily as easy as it should be. Nevertheless, any updated and well-designed anti-adware or similar security shouldn't find it difficult to remove the Freshy Toolbar and its browser changes. Malware experts also would recommend wielding the same software versus the Freshy Toolbar's many relatives, such as the Swirlz Toolbar, the SparkleBox Toolbar, the MakeMeBabies Toolbar, the Oscar Delta Toolbar, the Crizbuzz Toolbar, the Sweet Tunes Toolbar and the Energy Community Toolbar.
Technical Details
Registry Modifications
HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Approved Extensions\{b8f3c254-ae65-4d98-a47d-4bcfd9939868}Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION\tb_Freshy.exeSOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\{b8f3c254-ae65-4d98-a47d-4bcfd9939868}SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\URLSearchHooks\{b8f3c254-ae65-4d98-a47d-4bcfd9939868}SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\{b8f3c254-ae65-4d98-a47d-4bcfd9939868}
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