Alexa tool bar

  • Thread starter Thread starter Russell Eaton
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Russell Eaton

Microsoft antispyware Beta 1 will not allow me to install
the Alexa tool bar on my PC. During installation of
Alexa Microsoft antispyware Beta 1 asked: ALLOW or
BLOCK. I chose ALLOW, but Alexa continues to be
blocked. When I check Internet Explorer under VEIW,
TOOLBARS, I can see Alexa greyed out so I cannot tick
it. How can I resolve this?
 
Hi Russell,

Im not sure how to allow it ,Some of its components are
regarded as adware/spyware so are you sure you want to
have this installed ?

Heres abit of info i found by scanning the file and
reading Alexa's site hope it help's,

Scanning the Alexa Setup file at Kaspersky Anti-Virus
shows : AdWare.ToolBar.AlexaBar.b in the file so maybe
this is also being detected by MS Antispy and being
blocked


Even from reading Alexa's Site you can see its logging
info:

ALEXA'S TOOLBAR SERVICE COLLECTS AND STORES INFORMATION
ABOUT THE WEB PAGES YOU VIEW, THE DATA YOU ENTER IN
ONLINE FORMS AND SEARCH FIELDS, AND, WITH VERSIONS 5.0
AND HIGHER, THE PRODUCTS YOU PURCHASE ONLINE WHILE USING
THE TOOLBAR SERVICE.

The URLs we collect through the Toolbar Service sometimes
contain personal information about you. For example, when
you enter information on a Web page (e.g., when you
complete an online registration form or sign up for a
contest), the operator of the website may insert that
information into its URLfor that or the next page. This
information often appears after a question mark ("?") in
the URL, although it can appear in other places. This
means that your name, your address, your e-mail address,
or similar information you might consider private or
personally identifiable which you enter into a Web page
sometimes becomes part of a URLthat is then transmitted
to Alexa and automatically stored in Alexa's databases

Simply by using the toolbar each member contributes
valuable information about the web, how it is used, what
is important and what is not. This information is
returned to the community as Related Links, Traffic
Rankings and more. One of its most important features is
Related Links, which tells you about websites that
are "related" to the ones you are viewing while surfing
the Web and which you may find interesting. It does this,
in part, by logging and analyzing the Web surfing
patterns of Alexa users, which we call usage paths. These
usage paths are also used to create research and
commercial reports that analyze aggregate Web usage
patterns.


Here's Symantecs write up on them.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/sp
yware.alexa.html




Andy
 
-----Original Message-----


Hi Russell,

Im not sure how to allow it ,Some of its components are
regarded as adware/spyware so are you sure you want to
have this installed ?

Heres abit of info i found by scanning the file and
reading Alexa's site hope it help's,

Scanning the Alexa Setup file at Kaspersky Anti-Virus
shows : AdWare.ToolBar.AlexaBar.b in the file so maybe
this is also being detected by MS Antispy and being
blocked


Even from reading Alexa's Site you can see its logging
info:

ALEXA'S TOOLBAR SERVICE COLLECTS AND STORES INFORMATION
ABOUT THE WEB PAGES YOU VIEW, THE DATA YOU ENTER IN
ONLINE FORMS AND SEARCH FIELDS, AND, WITH VERSIONS 5.0
AND HIGHER, THE PRODUCTS YOU PURCHASE ONLINE WHILE USING
THE TOOLBAR SERVICE.

The URLs we collect through the Toolbar Service sometimes
contain personal information about you. For example, when
you enter information on a Web page (e.g., when you
complete an online registration form or sign up for a
contest), the operator of the website may insert that
information into its URLfor that or the next page. This
information often appears after a question mark ("?") in
the URL, although it can appear in other places. This
means that your name, your address, your e-mail address,
or similar information you might consider private or
personally identifiable which you enter into a Web page
sometimes becomes part of a URLthat is then transmitted
to Alexa and automatically stored in Alexa's databases

Simply by using the toolbar each member contributes
valuable information about the web, how it is used, what
is important and what is not. This information is
returned to the community as Related Links, Traffic
Rankings and more. One of its most important features is
Related Links, which tells you about websites that
are "related" to the ones you are viewing while surfing
the Web and which you may find interesting. It does this,
in part, by logging and analyzing the Web surfing
patterns of Alexa users, which we call usage paths. These
usage paths are also used to create research and
commercial reports that analyze aggregate Web usage
patterns.


Here's Symantecs write up on them.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/sp
yware.alexa.html




Andy
Click to expand...

If a person wants to use Alexa then that is his call and
not that of anyone's piece of software.

I'm using Alexa and Spy Sweeper does not tag is as bad;
Mcfee virus scan and Ad Aware SE Pro does but their
decisions can be ignored.
 
Yeah i agree its not that bad Its just my view on them I
wouldnt want something installed thats collecting info
and possibly passwords,name,address etc.. That was all
from Alexa's site that i posted in the original reply so
they are not hiding that fact.

It can usually be removed easily using the Add/Remove
screen & Spybot & Adaware targets them and will remove it
easy enough and your are right they are very closely
linked to Microsoft Through IE and MSN .

MS used to include Alexa as part of "Web Accessories"
with IE and Alexa powers MSN Search,Im not sure if thats
still the case now though.

Heres the page from Microsoft that used to include Alexa

http://web.archive.org/web/20040201221821/http:/www.micros
oft.com/windows/ie/previous/webaccess/default.asp


Secunia discovered a bug in IE which meant that if you
used the "Related Items" menu/button, then any time in
the same IE session you happen to press Ctrl+R (only
Ctrl+R, not F5 or right-click/refresh) to refresh a page
(including 'secure' SSL-enabled pages), even if you've
already closed the Explorer Bar, the current page's URL
will be transmitted (in plain text, even for SSL pages)
to MSN and Alexa

As Secunia points out: "The data transmitted to "msn.com"
and "alexa.com" is the complete URL. In some cases this
could contain sensitive information such as username,
password, session id, search string, "secret paths", and
more."

But hopefully this has been fixed in the latest updates.


**Note this is just my own opinion on this and i dont
represent Microsoft in any way ;)

The main issue as i can see it is with the Related Links
Feature which appears as the 'Tools'/'Show Related Links'
menu item on the toolbar. If you use that feature, IE
will contact the Alexa servers, via MSN, to obtain
information about other web pages which they think are
related, open an Explorer Bar, and display those ,

If you use it, you will be sending information to MSN and
Alexa obtained by spying, because there is nowhere that
Microsoft adequately discloses and documents that
privacy 'leak'. Alexa have some information on it, and a
pretty clear privacy policy, but no mention is made of
MSN's interstitial involvement.

As far as i can work out the Alexa/Show Related Links
Feature is just a registry key, creating a menu item ,
pointing to a local web page , pointing to an MSN search
page , which redirects to the Alexa web site(As Shown
Below). All that is 'installed' on your PC is that HTML
page, which uses MSN and Alexa, but only if you use it.

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Extensions\{c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a}

Within IE, see Tools / 'Show Related Links'

C:\Windows\Web\related.htm

http://related.msn.com/related.asp?url=

http://xslt.alexa.com/data?cli=16&url=



Alexa isnt going to cause you many problems if you can
live with the fact its collecting info on you and the
possible problems when you run removers as both Panda and
Kaspersky detected it as adware so your spyware scanners
might as well.Whatever is best for you really If you
still want to install it Maybe try shutting down any
protection products you have then installing the toolbar
then configuring your removers to ignore Alexa if its
detected.


Andy Manc
 
Hi Chief

Im not trying to say people cannot make their own mind up
i was just pointing out that its regarded as spyware
incase they wasnt aware of the issue with Alexa.

I agree with you about it being your own call and just
posted that in my last post if people want to run Alexa
thats their choice I personally think any program that
says its gonna collect all the info you type and send it
back to thier server including name ,addresses ,email,
passwords,url's etc isnt for me maybe that info is
already leaked out sometimes but id rather not download a
toolbar thats advertising its gonna take all your
personal information and store it,but thats just my
opinion.You do what ever makes you happy :)


Have a great day

Andy
 
Its 7am here i forgot about the time difference so should
of said have a great night ,Its me who will be having a
great day as its just starting and the sun's shining just
what i need to keep me happy in work.



Andy
 
Thanks Andy and ChiefZeke for trying to help, but I still
do not have a solution. I absolutely must have the Alexa
toolbar for marketing reasons. If necessary I will
uninstall Microsoft spyware. I hope Microsoft see this
post and privide a fix. If you know anybody who is using
the Alexa toolbar AND the Microsoft spyware please put me
in touch with them. all the best, Russell
 
Hi Russell

I found out abit of info that might help , I'm wrong
about Alexa powering MSN that has never been the case and
Microsoft have dropped Alexa and no longer have the show
related links button in the tools menu(Installing Alexa
does bring it back though), Spybot S&D block's it
instantly and will not let it run,Norton & Adware also
have promlems with Alexa so really you need to disable
all of them to install Alexa Bar ,

I installed Alexa bar and got various pop ups from
spyware guard/Spy sweeper and MS Antispy showing it was
installing as a BHO and registering AtxTB1.dll and asking
me if i wanted to allow it.Then the system crashed to a
blue screen with a error message saying BAD_POOL_HEADER
Technical Info :***Stop (0x00000019)(0x00000020)
(0xE2EF3140)(0XE2EF31F0)(0X0C160201)

I rebooted and all the changes had been allowed and Alexa
was installed without me getting the choice.Your right
its not working, it does show if i goto View then
Toolbars and put a check next to alexa it shows on the
same part as the address bar on the right hand side a
text box that i can open (I cannot type in this box so
the install is corrupt in some way)

If i goto Tools on the top bar show related links has
come back Microsoft dropped this feature so it means
Alexa has installed but its not been allowed to add
itself to my BHO list I have Spybot,Norton,MS
Antispy,SpywareBlaster,SpywareGuard and more so it could
be any thats blocking Alexa and stopping it being added
to my BHO list ,The AtxTB1.dll is registered and shows up
in my system32 folder and this is the BHO so its there
but blocked and i dont want to disable everything to
allow it but you will need to to find whats blocking it.

I used the add/remove screen entry for Alexa Toolbar and
it showed it had remove Alexa then used Yahoo Antispy
which found 40 reg entries which it removed then used Ad-
Aware SE which found another 80 registry entries for
Alexa.

I used Alexa's site and used the live support feature to
chat direct to them ,hope it helps you if you really
need to install the toolbar

----------------------------------------------------------

AndyManchesta:

I cannot view Alexa Toolbar


Call accepted by operator Kelly(Alexa).


Kelly:

hello, Andy . You have Internet Explorer on a PC machine?


AndyManchesta:

Ive tried installing the toolbar and it says its complete
and i can see it registers the atxtb1.dll as i get a
Microsoft Antispy warning which ive allowed ,I tested it
by installing Yahoo toolbar but this is working fine,I
have IE version 6

Kelly:

Okay. In the View menu, is Alexa listed (under Toolbars)
and if so, is it checked? Also, it might be responding to
the Yahoo Toolbar name in that menu--sometimes they
switch identities in the View menu so that you check
Yahoo and Alexa comes on or vice versa.

AndyManchesta:

yeah its listed on the view menu it was by itself and it
makes no difference if i check it or uncheck it ,then i
added yahoo toolbar aswell and that appears and
dissapears when i check/ uncheck yahoo. I do notice if i
check Alexa on the address bar right on the right hand
side next to links it just shows a area i can enlarge if
i try ,its just a plain text box but it will not let me
type into it

Ive now taken the yahoo toolbar off it was just to test
if third party extentions was working which it is , if i
go to the advanced menu of IE i can see it is checked
next to allow third party extentions .Im curious if its
being blocked by Microsoft as part of their security
patches for any reason if not then maybe MS Antispy is
blocking it.Im aware of the issues with Alexa but i feel
it should be my own choice and id like to install the
toolbar

Kelly:

i agree with you on that last point. I have the MS
antipsy product and have no problem running the Toolbar.
I wonder if you can check here:

in Tools | Manage Add-ons

AndyManchesta:

yeah ive tried and it does not list alexa

Kelly:

there should be two Alexa identified (in the Publisher
column, says "(not verified)" after it.

Kelly:
not in Enabled or Disabled?

AndyManchesta:

they dont exist ? yahoo's entries do "Im checking add-ons
currently loaded in IE " and it doesnt contain alexa only
symantec,yahoo,java ,spybots entries

Kelly:

okay, you didn't mention Symantec or spybot before. Both
of those do impact the Alexa Toolbar.

Kelly:

with spybot, you can go into the section where they have
the past things they've blocked and revert them.

it's the Recovery icon in Spybot where you can revert.
Oh, Ad-Aware's another one. And Norton too.

Kelly:
(I spend a lot of Alexa's dime supporting these guys'
products)


AndyManchesta:

so if i shut down all these products would it then let me
install the toolbar ?


Kelly:

well, it's not so simple as that because they might
already be blocking or quarantining it. What I would do
would be to check all of your protection products and see
if there's a way (as I described the procedure for
Spybot) to revert the block. Then, you might just have
the Toolbar start working. If not, but you are able to
revert where you can find that it's blocking the Alexa
Toolbar, you could then temporarily disable them long
enough to install the Toolbar, then turn them on one by
one and watch for them to ask you if you want to block
the Toolbar. (I know, for example, that spybot has
default to block without warning, but you can change the
setting to "always warn" or something very similar to
that language. I had the Toolbar before I installed
Spybot and then Allowed it. I have had people who
installed the Toolbar while they had Spybot already
running and it just blocked it automatically, without
warning them. they changed the setting and recovered the
block and it started working.)

Kelly:
Of course the whole matter becomes a bit more complicated
when you're kevlar to the gills, as is the case in your
situation with all the products overlapping.

Kelly:
I don't mean to bombard you with information. I'm happy
to just sort of stand by while you poke through the
settings.

AndyManchesta:

so if you dont mind me asking whats the deal with all
this bad press ? I noticed the setup file if scanned at
Kaspersky Anti-Virus or Panda its picks up
Adware.Alexa.Toolbar.b and symantec call it spyware .Is
it all because of the related links feature and the info
that sent to alexa ,Can Alexa not resolve that with them
or is that too long a story , can alexa not get
themselves removed from these blacklists ?


Kelly:

one moment--distracted by another chat...

AndyManchesta:

yeah no problem


Kelly:

OKay, yeah. We are working with them. they sort of prefer
to pretend the world is flat even though we've pointed
out to them that they're lying about us and damaging our
reputation.

AndyManchesta:

I hope you dont mind me asking about alexa but id like to
understand it more before going against all the
protection products and allowing it . I can see Alexa's
Privacy Policy on your site and its very clear in that it
collects infomation , If im happy for alexa to have my
information and agree to install the toolbar which i have
been trying to do for a few days why do all these
products try to stop it , Its not like its a virus or
worm so i dont see why they all go against it.It used to
be incuded in "Web Accessories" in IE by Miscosoft so
hows come things have changed so fast ?


Kelly:

It's a matter of our privacy policy being so forthcoming
about the data we collect and what we do with it that it
sounds scarier than it is. For example, we say in our
privacy policy that personally identifiable information
may be transmitted to Alexa. that's because such
information may be in a URL for a poorly designed site.
we take measures to delete things in URLs after a "?"
(cgi arguments) and other things to that we don't end up
actually getting the information--to a complete lay
person (which you would think these big players are not)
it sounds like we're going to get on your hard drive and
make a list of your transgressions and learn about your
passwords and bank accounts, but that's not what it
actually says. just how they choose to interpret it.

Kelly:

i think part of the problem is that there are very few
lists of who is spyware and who isn't, but the ones that
exist have us on there and nobody wants to take a stand
and remove something from the list for fear they'll be
wrong, even though we can show them how wrong they are to
keep us on the list. And, no, of course I don't mind you
asking. I'm glad to have a chance to address it.

Kelly:

we did include it in IE and that contract just ended. i
think MS is trying to move into our space as well so they
wanted to stop paying us to determine related links, etc.

Kelly:

yeah, you're right about the privacy policy--the big
thing that they won't accept is that spyware does
something secretly, whereas we do one thing and it's all
we say we do: you give us a URL and we give you
information about that URL. Where does the spying come
in, we ask them. they can't answer the question, but
won't remove us from their lists. thing is, we hate
spyware too, we've been using our Toolbar data
responsibly since before there was such a word, but they
come along and now we're all suspect.


AndyManchesta:

so has the related links in IE been stopped do you know
im sure it used to be there but it wasnt last time i
checked now after trying to install the alexa toolbar the
related links on the tools menu appears i use yahoo as a
homepage so its apearing on that ,It doesnt seem to do
anything though if i press it

Kelly:

As of SP2, our contract is over with MS and no more
Related Info Sidebar since then.

AndyManchesta:

thats what i mean it wasnt on my tools bar but it is
again now after trying to install alexa the button doesnt
appear to do anything but it does show up


Kelly:

Yeah, that won't work--we just can't seem to successfully
make the menu item go away. (Note: the Related Info
sidebar was a thing AdAware used to "find" on people's
machines. it wasn't software. it was a registry key to
enable the software and it was put there by MS, but
adaware still "found" it on people's machines. Adaware's
parent company is in nowhere, Sweden, and we had someone
on vacation there visiting family, he tracked them down
(took him two days) and they talked to him, he made our
case, they acknowledged we won the argument (in swedish,
no less) and then left all the way it was.

AndyManchesta:

So if i understand the related links feature right if
someone used it would call alexa through msn and display
the results,Like you say it's a reg key that creates the
menu button that points to a local page then through msn
to alexa so shouldnt msn be getting the bad press as well


Kelly:

(right--our goal was to make it actually work for people
when they reinstall the Toolbar because people wanted it--
the related links feature)

Kelly:

yes, you're right there--no idea why we're the target
rather than MS. of course that's a dead issue now because
if anyone upgrades to SP2 or gets a new version of IE,
we're no longer there.

Kelly:

Same logic: we're on all these lists--none of them have
the Google Toolbar on their lists and it's the same darn
thing.

Kelly:

I work now in customer service, but I've been here for
nearly six years. I used to be the admin for the CEO and
COO. If there were something shady we were doing, I would
know about it. that's what makes it so frustrating for me
to sit here and spend all this energy proving there's
nothing there. Nobody requires any of these anti-spyware
applications to be accountable for what they call
spyware, even though they threaten livelihoods by
spreading paranoia for their own gain. (sorry for the
sermon--you can see you hit a button with me)


AndyManchesta:


I was never too sure how closely linked alexa was to
Microsoft . If its all because of the related links then
surely msn get the same info you get if its sent through
them first so maybe Alexa is just being made the
scapegoat so to speak or does its send the info anyway
even without using the related links its hard for me to
comment as i can't get it to install

Kelly:

I think it's probably less malicious and more about
bucking the trend and a sloppy precedent for what
initially made the list and what didn't.

Kelly:

well,the Related Info sidebar sent no information unless
it was in use--then all we knew was someone, somewhere,
using IE, requested information on URL X.

Kelly:

As for the Toolbar--no information is sent if it is
installed and turned off. no information is sent if it is
installed and hidden. if it's installed and turned on,
the Toolbar asks us for information about URL X and we
get that URL and provide the relevant information.


AndyManchesta:

Is there any way information like credit card details and
bank account numbers can be transmitted to you and if it
did what level of staff do you think would have access to
them ?

(Thought id go quite for a while and see how she replied)


Kelly:

If there were credit card details or account numbers in a
URL that was a)not https, b)visited while the Toolbar was
turned on, it could be transmitted to us. (That would be
the fault of the bank or the store, though, because the
website determines what information is encrypted in the
URL and what is transmitted in the clear.) In that
situation, not only would they hit Alexa, but they would
hit every ISP and machine between you and the server.
(Another reason merchants and banks are not likely to be
so stupid as to design sites so the URLs don't encrypt
sensitive information.)


Kelly:

Nobody works with "raw" logs. Before anyone does the
fancy math to figure out the related info, the logs are
stripped of: 1)Anything after a cgi argument, 2)part of
the IP address. We also have (and have had since '97 or
earlier) a strict company wide policy that anyone who
tries to identify a toolbar user with any of our data for
any reason is outta here like yesterday.

And, truth is, those guys are so well paid and so geeked
out and busy (pardon my being increasingly colloqial with
you if you find it unprofessional), there's no way they
have the time or inclination to look for that stuff. But,
like I say, pay attention when you go to sites where you
buy stuff or do banking--if you look at the URLs, you'll
probably see very little in the way of that sort of
personal or personally identifiable data.


Kelly:

(I'm a tree-huggin' english major with strong feelings
about privacy, what's right, etc. I could never work for,
say, Gator, because I think they're sleazy. I have no
problem working for Alexa, and as I say, I understand it
all reasonably well because of the high-level exposure
I've had of the nuts and bolts of the service over the
years. Anything we do is actually geared toward making
the 'net more useful, keeping people better informed
about their options. I do believe Alexa is an honest and
trustworthy company .

Kelly:

it's a shame, really--the fear is legitimate that your
online activities could be monitored by anyone from the
government to hackers to whatever. it's a real service
any security company provides, but, as I have observed
across the industry, Web companies are really tech-
centric or business model/ROI centric, so they often
accept something (like a pre-fab list of companies that
make "spyware") and ink the contract so they can get into
production, then you can't find anyone who'll stand up
and help to keep the paranoia-mongering to a minimum in
the name of credibility.


Kelly:

let me know how you progress with the attempt to get the
safety out of the way long enough to give us a try. I'm
really interested in learning how to better assist people
who are in your position. I know my way around spybot
pretty well, but not so much with adaware and norton.


AndyManchesta:

I should be able to configure MS Antispy if you are on
their lists i will try your advise with spybot and see
how i get on with norton Thanks for taking the time to
explain about Alexa its really helped me understand it
better .


Kelly:

Like I say, thank you for giving me an opportunity to
explain. most chats I have start with "get your scumware
crap *^&%%!!!#$#! off my system now, jerks!"



AndyManchesta:

yeah i know what you mean,Well im not sure where you are
but im in the UK and its 12.20am here so im just relaxing
having a beer .I'll try install the toolbar and let you
know how it goes .


Kelly:

great. If you would rather use e-mail me than chat, i'm
(e-mail address removed). (I'm in San Francisco and it's 4:20 here
in the afternoon. I hope the pub is making preparations
for my prompt departure from the office at 6pm.)


AndyManchesta:

Thanks again for your advise its been a great help


Kelly:

Thanks too for your interest in the Alexa Toolbar and an
enjoyable support experience. I'm glad my help has
been... helpful.
 
sorry russell but this was the only way to get a msg across, want to know how
to do track eraser manually as every time i take ticks out they come back
when i go into spyware again
regards sandra (grandmother)
 
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