SocialSearch Toolbar

Posted: July 24, 2013

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

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.

Threat Level:	5/10
Infected PCs:	54

First Seen:	July 24, 2013
Last Seen:	August 22, 2022
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Social Search Toolbar is a Potentially Unwanted Program that sometimes is marketed as a social networking tool that allows you to monitor ex-friend contacts on sites like Facebook, but actually is a Chrome toolbar that doesn't have any such features, according to the latest analyses. What the Social Search Toolbar can do is add a basic toolbar to your browser and create additional tabs to promote its own search site, neither of which offer any major advantages to you or your Web browser. Besides its questionable self-promotion tactics, the Social Search Toolbar also has been found to be exceptionally resistant to being uninstalled, and SpywareRemove.com malware experts recommend the use of anti-malware software for deleting the Social Search Toolbar conveniently – even if the Social Search Toolbar isn't necessarily a danger to your PC's safety.

Social Search Toolbar: Sociable for the Sake of 'Helping' You Get to Specific Sites of Its Choosing

The Social Search Toolbar sometimes is found marketed as an independent product, but more often is installed through unrelated downloads that happen to include hidden installers for the Social Search Toolbar along with the other software that you're trying to acquire. Like most PUPs, the Social Search Toolbar doesn't offer many benefits for the trouble the Social Search Toolbar causes, and will ignore your browser's default settings for the sake of displaying its own sites through new tabs that are opened automatically. Sites related to the Social Search Toolbar are not malicious, but SpywareRemove.com malware experts also note that nor do they serve any purpose to your benefit – since they only redirect you to Bing and other major sites that you can travel to without the Social Search Toolbar's help.

Coupled with the Social Search Toolbar's suspicious marketing history is a marked pattern of PC users finding it difficult to remove the Social Search Toolbar. Depending on how the Social Search Toolbar is installed, the Social Search Toolbar may not even be displayed in your browser's add-on manager, which makes completely disabling and removing the Social Search Toolbar an unnecessarily unintuitive process, at best. Despite these overall negative traits, SpywareRemove.com malware researchers have not found any other major drawbacks to the Social Search Toolbar, although they do recommend removing the Social Search Toolbar in most cases.

No Need to Search Long for the Fast Way Away from a Social Search Toolbar

Based on the Social Search Toolbar's refusal to be disabled and uninstalled like a benign browser add-on, anti-malware software usually can be considered for deleting a Social Search Toolbar as fast and thoroughly as possible. Current versions of the Social Search Toolbar appear to be limited to affecting the Google Chrome browser, but SpywareRemove.com malware researchers long have seen similar Potentially Unwanted Programs affecting virtually every major brand of browser over the years.

The easiest way to keep an installation of Social Search Toolbar far from your PC is to monitor the installation of freeware programs carefully. Because the Social Search Toolbar and other suspect toolbars analyzed by SpywareRemove.com malware experts usually are installed along with various unrelated applications, a careful look over any offered install options can save you some significant trouble in figuring out how to remove an unwanted browser add-on after you get it on your computer.

Technical Details

Additional Information

The following directories were created:

%TEMP%\CT3185123%TEMP%\ct3239904

Search.greatsocialsearch.com