84,488,480 programs installed

Should I remove Ask Shopping Toolbar?

What percent of users and experts removed it?
79% remove it21% keep it
Overall Sentiment
Bad
What do people think about it?
(click star to rate)
How common is it?
Global Rank #4,523
United States Rank #4,061
Reach 0.1165%
Lifespan of installation (until removal)
< 16.34 days
482.08 days >
Average installed length: 253.29 days

Versions

VersionDistribution
12.45.1.1291 0.04%
12.45.1.45 1.13%
12.45.1.44 0.30%
12.40.6.1102 0.04%
12.40.6.1065 0.04%
12.40.6.984 0.04%
12.40.6.29 1.87%
12.40.6.27 0.30%
12.40.4.572 0.04%
12.40.4.535 0.04%
12.40.4.88 0.26%
12.40.4.79 0.04%
12.40.3.4114 0.04%
12.40.3.4105 0.04%
12.40.2.471 0.22%
12.40.1.3783 0.13%
12.38.1.408 0.44%
12.38.0.3277 0.04%
12.38.0.403 0.26%
12.38.0.395 0.17%
12.38.0.387 1.52%
12.38.0.385 0.48%
12.37.1.364 0.61%
12.37.0.2803 0.04%
12.37.0.354 1.35%
12.37.0.352 0.22%
12.35.0.2656 0.04%
12.35.0.2654 0.04%
12.35.0.2480 0.04%
12.35.0.289 0.44%
12.35.0.286 1.13%
12.34.1.2289 0.09%
12.34.1.274 0.57%
12.34.1.256 0.26%
12.33.2.233 0.13%
12.29.0.1913 0.04%
12.29.0.1899 0.04%
12.29.0.1893 0.09%
12.29.0.1770 0.30%
12.29.0.1732 0.04%
12.29.0.1638 0.13%
12.29.0.225 0.91%
12.29.0.222 4.62%
12.28.1.1368 0.13%
12.28.1.1362 0.04%
12.28.1.1300 0.04%
12.28.1.1258 0.09%
12.28.1.1249 0.09%
12.28.1.168 1.70%
12.28.1.165 3.79%
12.27.0.1124 0.04%
227 versions

Other programs by APN

Ask Shopping Toolbar

What is Ask Shopping Toolbar?

This is an Ask.com ad-injection toolbar that is bundled with various 3rd-party programs and installers. From the site: "The enhanced shopping search experience includes rich content, a variety of product listings, and visual product search results. These shopping results provide additional sponsored rich content such as product image, price and merchant. Products are available from multiple merchants. Please note: features and functionality may differ based on your locale, browser and version of the Shopping Toolbar."

About  (from APN)

The Shopping toolbar by Ask enhances user shopping experience by offering an enhanced shopping search results, links to popular shopping sites and/or content such as coupons, special offers and the latest deals from many merchants. It includes rich content, a variety of product listings and visual product search result...  Read more

Overview

The most used version is 12.29.0.222, with over 56% of all installations currently using this version. Upon installation and setup, it defines an auto-start registry entry which makes this program run on each Windows boot for all user logins. A scheduled task is added to Windows Task Scheduler in order to launch the program at various scheduled times (the schedule varies depending on the version). The software is designed to connect to the Internet and adds a Windows Firewall exception in order to do so without being interfered with. The main program executable is tbnotifier.exe. Typically most users end up uninstalling this just after a few days. The software installer includes 21 files and is usually about 582 KB (595,968 bytes).
  • Possible malware installed by this program
  • Automatically starts with Windows
  • Loads into the web browser
  • Typically distributed through a pay-per-install bundle
  • The wisdom of the crowd agrees, you should remove it!
Warning, multiple anti-virus scanners have detected possible malware in Ask Shopping Toolbar.
tbnotifier.exe (f332813cc013d6af5c5a0c32a3aed725) has been flagged by the following 4 scanners:
Anti-Virus softwareVersionDetection
Baidu-International 4.0.3.15817 Adware.Win32.Asktoolbar.45
ESET-NOD32 9.12098 a variant of Win32/Bundled.Toolbar.Ask.M potentially unsafe
K7 AntiVirus 13.2016900 Unwanted-Program
K7GW 13.2016900 Unwanted-Program ( 004c42951 )
Ask Shopping Toolbar has been found to be bundled with 3rd party software. If you have not purposefully installed this, you should be safe uninstalling it.

Program detailsProgram details

Displayed publisher: APN, LLC
URL: help.ask.com/link/portal/30015/30018/Article/227/What-features-does-the-Shopping-Toolbar-by-Ask-offer
Help link: apnstatic.ask.com/static/toolbar/everest/documents/faq/index.html
Installation folder: C:\Program Files\askpartnernetwork\toolbar\updater
Uninstaller: MsiExec.exe /X{4F524A00-6A76-A76A-76A7-A758B70C0A06}
(The Windows Installer is used for the installation, maintenance, and removal.)
Estimated size: 582 KB

Program filesFiles installed by Ask Shopping Toolbar

Program executable:tbnotifier.exe
Name:Ask TBNotifier
Ask Toolbar Notifier
Path:C:\Program Files\askpartnernetwork\toolbar\updater\tbnotifier.exe
MD5:4b96654025b28eeb1e5d8f001e5d1b8a
(From the publisher) “The Ask Toolbar Notifier is a client process which runs as part of the Ask Toolbar. The Notifier's job is to help instruct you during the toolbar installation and browser upgrades on your computer. ”
Additional files:
  • idcsrvstub.dll - IDC Server Stub
  • idcsrvstub_x64.dll

Program behaviorsBehaviors exhibited

Scheduled Task
  • tbnotifier.exe is scheduled as a task with the class '{2A74CAE7-C98C-44C6-9E9E-155D069D857D}' (runs on registration).
Scheduled Task (Boot/Login)
  • tbnotifier.exe is automatically launched at startup through a scheduled task named 1.
Startup File (All Users Run)
  • tbnotifier.exe is loaded in the all users (HKLM) registry as a startup file name 'ApnTBMon' which loads as "C:\Program Files\AskPartnerNetwork\Toolbar\Updater\TBNotifier.exe".
Windows Firewall Allowed Program
  • tbnotifier.exe is added as a firewall exception for 'C:\Program Files\AskPartnerNetwork\Toolbar\Updater\TBNotifier.exe'.

Program resource utilizationResource utilization averages

tbnotifier.exe
Memory:7.6 MB
21.09 MB average
Total CPU:0.0017233260%
0.031193% average
Kernel CPU:0.00077767%
0.016088% average
User CPU:0.00094565%
0.015104% average

How do I remove Ask Shopping Toolbar?

You can uninstall Ask Shopping Toolbar from your computer by using the Add/Remove Program feature in the Window's Control Panel.
  1. On the Start menu (for Windows 8, right-click the screen's bottom-left corner), click Control Panel, and then, under Programs, do one of the following:
    • Windows Vista/7/8/10: Click Uninstall a Program.
    • Windows XP: Click Add or Remove Programs.
  2. When you find the program Ask Shopping Toolbar, click it, and then do one of the following:
    • Windows Vista/7/8/10: Click Uninstall.
    • Windows XP: Click the Remove or Change/Remove tab (to the right of the program).
  3. Follow the prompts. A progress bar shows you how long it will take to remove Ask Shopping Toolbar.
  4. If for some reason uninstallation fails, please install Microsoft's uninstall fixer utility which will help fix problems with programs that can't be uninstalled at support.microsoft.com.

How do I reset my web browser?

If your web browser homepage and search settings have been modfied by Ask Shopping Toolbar you can restore them to their previous default settings.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
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OS VERSIONS
Win 7 (SP1) 56%
Win 10 0%
 
HOW IT STARTS
Automatically starts? Yes
(Found in the run registry)
 
USER ACTIONS
Uninstall it 79%
Keep it 21%

Windows OS versionsWindows

Which Windows OS versions does it run on?
Windows 7 59.34%
Windows 10 19.02%
Windows Vista 13.76%
Windows XP 7.84%
Windows Server 2003 0.04%
Which OS releases does it run on?
Windows 7 Home Premium 42.94%
Windows Vista Home Premiu... 10.87%
Microsoft Windows XP 7.67%
Windows 7 Professional 6.92%
Windows 7 Ultimate 6.92%
Windows 8.1 6.84%

Distribution by countryGeography

50.59% of installs come from the United States
Which countries install it?
  United States 50.59%
  Germany 8.58%
  United Kingdom 4.78%
  Canada 3.42%
  France 2.96%
  Australia 2.48%
  Norway 2.34%
  DK 2.20%
  Netherlands 1.81%
  Italy 1.81%
  Belgium 1.74%
  Brazil 1.67%
  Sweden 1.26%
  Austria 1.15%

OEM distributionPC manufacturers

What PC manufacturers (OEMs) have it installed?
Hewlett-Packard 33.27%
Dell 23.88%
Acer 16.54%
Toshiba 6.76%
ASUS 5.84%
Samsung 4.20%
GIGABYTE 2.76%
Lenovo 2.03%
Medion 1.38%
Sahara 1.18%
American Megatrends 1.12%
Intel 1.05%
Common models
HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook ... 6.70%
HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook ... 6.07%
HP Pavilion g6 Notebook P... 4.05%
Dell Inspiron 1545 3.74%
HP Pavilion g7 Notebook P... 3.12%
HP G62 Notebook PC 2.80%


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