Swagbucks Toolbar

The precarious Swagbucks Toolbar is also known as the Swag Bucks Community Toolbar. The application appears to have been developed by Prodege LLC; however, it is represented by Conduit. Therefore, you are routed to swagbucks.com even if you intend to visit swagbucks.ourtoolbar.com, a known domain for the community toolbars. Once you initiate the installation of the suspicious application, you are prompted with a Conduit installation wizard. Here you are asked to modify your home page and search engine to search.conduit.com. We do not recommend these changes and you should un-tick the appropriate boxes. Overall, it is important that you do not ignore the presented information, or you may mistake the application for a malicious browser hijacker. Even though the extension is not a hijacker, we still recommend that you remove Swagbucks Toolbar from the computer.

Once you install the toolbar onto the computer, every time you open the browser you are routed to the swagbucks.com registration page. If you are not comfortable with sharing your private data – do not share it and remove Swagbucks Toolbar. What would happen if you exposed your address, full name and similar information? Web cookies will store this data in order to produce the best services. Of course, this is risky, and you need to consider whether you want to risk your virtual identity for some browser add-on. Of course, you may be tempted by the idea of earning virtual money; however, you firstly need to examine the presented Privacy Policy:

When you sign up for the Swagbucks.com Sites you will be required to share information that identifies you personally. […] The Company may set and access cookies on your computer. A cookie is a small data file that a Web site may send to your browser and which may then be stored on your system. We use both session cookies and persistent cookies.

If you do not want to be tracked by the developers of the precarious toolbar, we recommend that you delete Swagbucks Toolbar altogether because disabling the cookies will disrupt the running of the entire program. Even though you can delete the application using automatic spyware removal software, you can also follow the manual removal guides below. Note that all computers should be equipped with up-to-date security software which could guard you against malicious programs.

How to remove Swagbucks Toolbar from PC:

Windows XP:

1. Open the Start menu (left of the Task Bar).
2. Select Control Panel and click Add or Remove Programs.
3. Select the application and click Remove.

Windows Vista or Windows 7:

1. Click the Start menu icon and open Control Panel.
2. Select Uninstall a program.
3. Right-click the application you want to remove and select Uninstall.

Windows 8:

1. Tap the Windows key to access the Metro UI start screen and right-click on the background.
2. Select All apps, open Control Panel and click Uninstall a program.
3. Right-click the undesirable applications – Search Protect by conduit and Swag Bucks Toolbar.
4. Select Uninstall.

Remove from web browsers

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Open the browser and simultaneously tap Alt+H.
2. Select Troubleshooting Information.
3. Click Reset Firefox, confirm and then select Finish.

Google Chrome:

1. Launch the browser, simultaneously tap Alt+F and select Settings.
2. Under On Startup, mark Open a specific page and click Set pages.
3. Overwrite/remove the provided startup page and click OK.
4. Go to Search, click the drop-down menu and select a new search provider.
5. Click Manage search engines, remove (X) the unwanted provider and click OK.
6. From the menu on the left select Extensions.
7. Navigate to the unwanted add-on, click the recycle bin and select Remove.

Internet Explorer:

1. Launch IE, simultaneously tap Alt+T and select Internet Options.
2. Click the General tab, overwrite the provided Home Page and click OK.
3. Tap Alt+T once again and select Manage Add-ons.
4. Select Toolbars and Extensions and Disable the unwanted add-on.
5. Select Search Providers and Remove the unwanted option. Click Close.