A9 Toolbar, is it safe?

Hi everyone, just wondering if the "A9 Toolbar for Internet Explorer" offered from a company thats by Amazon.com trusted or not....

Thanks,

Brian

 

There are privacy concerns raised in this review: http://reviews.cnet.com/A9/4505-10572_7-31336745.html

 

I don't trust any additional search toolbar and there are so many of them.
I don't even trust Google as a search engine, but I have to use something to search on the net and I do like the layout of Google, more than any other search engine.

If you buy something at the supermarket, they spy on you too and when you use your bank card to pay the bill, they are even able to make personal statistics about YOU without your knowledge.
Any additional toolbar and adware (not spyware) do exactly the same thing as supermarkets.
They watch both your buying and searching habits and often for practical reasons to serve the client better.
BUT general or personal information about people can be USED or ABUSED and that's the problem.

I don't need the "A9 toolbar", because Firefox starts with Google and that makes me ready to search on the internet.
As I said before, Firefox is a browser with a brilliant design and comfortable in many ways.
Starting with Google is one of them.

 

I wouldn't even trust the buildin firefox search toolbar either. I use keyword searches.

 

I dont think you should go with it. There are other safer toolbars with great features!
Google toolbar
Yahoo Toolbar with Anti-spy

 

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR A9.COM TOOLBAR SERVICE

INFORMATION COLLECTED AND STORED BY A9.COM'S TOOLBAR SERVICE

A9.COM'S TOOLBAR SERVICE COLLECTS AND STORES FULL UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATORS ("URLS") FOR EVERY WEB PAGE THAT YOU VIEW WHILE USING THE A9.COM TOOLBAR SERVICE. THESE URLS SOMETIMES INCLUDE PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION. URLS FROM SECURE (HTTPS) WEB PAGES ARE NOT COLLECTED. BY COLLECTING URLS, A9.COM TRACKS AND COLLECTS A RECORD OF USERS' WEB BROWSING ACTIVITY WITHIN AND ACROSS WEBSITES. A9.COM ALSO COLLECTS AND STORES OTHER USER INFORMATION YOU GIVE A9.COM WHEN YOU DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION YOU ENTER INTO THE TOOLBAR SERVICE. BECAUSE A9.COM IS A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF AMAZON.COM, INC., A9.COM IS ABLE TO CORRELATE INFORMATION IT COLLECTS WITH PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION THAT AMAZON.COM HAS, AND AMAZON.COM HAS ACCESS TO INFORMATION COLLECTED BY A9.COM. AMONG OTHER THINGS, A9.COM AND AMAZON.COM USE THIS INFORMATION TO CUSTOMIZE, PERSONALIZE, AND OTHERWISE IMPROVE THE SERVICES THEY PROVIDE TO YOU.

 

Thank you very much everyone for your reply. I am sorry I could not respond sooner, computer crashed and had to reformat it.

By everyones reply, I can see clearly it is very unsafe because it does pose as a privacy threat.

Thanks alot, I appreciate it.

Brian

 

Yep.

Besides, you can add Search engines up the wazoooo
from: MOZILLA'S SEARCH ENGINE PLUG-INS GENERAL SECTION HERE but in THIS LINK A9 is listed. I would not install, only install those you are familiar with from the main first link.

Cheers, TAS

 

Tassie_Devils,
Thanks for the links, maybe I can use one of these safe toolbars.

What irritates me the most is that all these suspicious toolbars, like A9, are NOT removed by any AS scanner, while they are nothing but adware, just like Google Desktop 2 beta.
I think they will develop more and more of these tools in the future to make adware possible.
I consider these toolbars as attractive trojans with a hidden adware function.