Home Malware Programs Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) You-Bar

You-Bar

Posted: December 9, 2013

Threat Metric

Threat Level: 2/10
Infected PCs: 232
First Seen: December 9, 2013
Last Seen: April 13, 2023
OS(es) Affected: Windows

You-Bar Screenshot 1You-Bar is adware that modifies your browser for displaying additional advertising content. Along with its advertisements, You-Bar also may monitor your non-confidential Web-browsing activities, which may provide a decrease in browser performance. Since You-Bar doesn't have any especially noteworthy features to make it worth putting up with the security risk of its advertisements, malware experts would like to consider deleting You-Bar with a dedicated anti-malware or anti-adware scanner to be a very common sense choice in any ordinary situation.

Getting the Taste of Advertising as You Bite into a You-Bar

You-Bar provides some generic links and content delivery mechanisms that are claimed to improve your browsing experiences, although malware experts find nothing of interest in them. With little in the way of substantial user-friendly features, You-Bar's most memorable attribute is its advertising capabilities. You-Bar may display advertisements as:

  • Pop-up windows.
  • Text-based advertisement links (sometimes referred to as inline advertisements).
  • Banners and other graphical advertisements that are injected into Web pages not related to them.

You-Bar also may be involved in homepage hijacks or search hijacks, which redirect your browser away from default sites towards ones preferred by You-Bar. In most cases, the sites that are promoted by these browser redirects – like Conduit.com – aren't risky, but malware researchers sometimes do see infection vectors and other toxic domains being promoted through browser hijackers. Many users also have experienced issues with browser slowdowns and related performance problems from You-Bar, which may be a side effect of You-Bar monitoring your Web-browsing activities (such as your searches and the duration of any website visits).

Getting Your Browser Unbarred by You-Bar's Advertisements

Like all adware products, You-Bar does have the potential to display compromised Web content that may initiate attacks against you or your computer. Since there's no easy way of managing or disabling You-Bar's advertisements, malware experts must suggest deleting You-Bar, as is par for the course with all similar Potentially Unwanted Programs lacking in beneficial features. While You-Bar may appear to respond well to normal uninstallation methods, using anti-malware or anti-adware software is more effective – if you want to be sure that your browser's settings all have been returned to standards.

You-Bar does include independent download links, but malware researchers consider it more likely that incautious PC users may be subjected to You-Bar after installing a bundle from a generalized freeware website. These bundles usually depend on primary brands of software, potentially even unofficial copies of reputable brands, which also include minor accessories like You-Bar. If you insist on visiting sites with histories of distributing adware, then you always should, at a minimum, scan potentially threatening executable files before launching them, which will allow most adware installers to be detected with no further issues.

Technical Details

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\AppDataLow\Software\CPXServiceSoftware\AppDataLow\Software\YouBarSoftware\AppDataLow\Software\YouBarCHSoftware\AppDataLow\Software\YouBarIESoftware\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Approved Extensions\{66AB5831-2B4B-4017-AB7F-3DF1B5C99170}Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Settings\{66AB5831-2B4B-4017-AB7F-3DF1B5C99170}Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\{66AB5831-2B4B-4017-AB7F-3DF1B5C99170}SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{66AB5831-2B4B-4017-AB7F-3DF1B5C99170}SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\cpxserviceSYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\cpxservice

Additional Information

The following directories were created:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\YouBar%ProgramFiles%\YouBarUninstaller%ProgramFiles(x86)%\YouBar%ProgramFiles(x86)%\YouBarUninstaller%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\cpxservice
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