Toolbars are best known for adding functionality and ease-of-use options to the end user. While the browser itself handles basic browsing navigation (Back, Stop, Reload, etc), toolbars often add additional functionality to browsers (additional search fields, form-fill, links back to popular sites. etc) Having a lot of toolbars installed is not very good because it slows down your computer. I recommend to install only 1 toolbar. Let’s say you use Yahoo services very often, then install Yahoo toolbar. As for me, I always use Google services, so I only have Google toolbar installed.
I’ve seen one of my friend’s computer that has 5 toolbars installed. When I asked my friend whether he uses all the toolbar functions, he said he didn’t know how did it even get there! Usually toolbar is bundled together with a software. Most of the time when installing software, we’ll blindly click on the “AGREE” button. That allows the software to install the toolbar before installing the software. So take an extra second to look carefully on what you’re agreeing. An example is when installing Nero Burning Rom. Just after running the setup file, you’ll be presented with a screen asking whether you’d like to install Ask toolbar. Will you immediately click the “Next” button or will you be very careful and select the non-default option “Install Nero Software without the Ask Toolbar“? Sometimes it’s tricky and we can be careless…
The best thing to do is to uninstall and remove the toolbar from computer if you don’t use it. Here’s how to do it.
You can uninstall a toolbar by using Add or Remove Programs from Control Panel. If you’re unable to remove toolbar from Add or Remove Programs, try using this free tool.
The Toolbar Uninstaller is a freeware program to get rid of unwanted toolbars. As time progresses, there are now more then 10000 different toolbars and counting. Toolbar Uninstaller (TbU for short) will be able to find some of them to be able to remove them.
The following is a list (could be outdated) of the toolbars that TbU is able to detect:
Internet Explorer
* Google Toolbar
* FearFM Toolbar
* MyWebSearch
Firefox
* Google Toolbar
* Yahoo Toolbar
* Alexa Toolbar
* Skype Toolbar
* Groowebar
* Coolstreaming Toolbar
* Stumbleupon Toolbar
* MX5 Club Toolbar
* Facebook Toolbar
* NetCraft Toolbar
* FearFM Toolbar
* McAfee SiteAdvisor
* eBay Toolbar
* Firefox Companion for eBay
* Clustybar
* ChaCha Toolbar
* Ask Toolbar
* IMVU Toolbar
* Oracle DBA Toolbar
* RankQuest SEO Toolbar
* RPoints Toolbar for Firefox
* Okapiland Search Toolbar
* Sheetmusicdirect.com Search Toolbar
* BigSite Toolbar
* Metawishlist Toolbar
* H*R Toolbar
* Kai3 Toolbar
* Bibleserver.com Toolbar
* The Music Hutch Toolbar
* Slavehack Toolbar
* PimpFish Basic Toolbar
* Quiz Addicts’ Toolbar
* Vertippdich Search Toolbar
* BlinkList Toolbar
* BanglaCricket Toolbar
* Faved Toolbar
* Neopets Toolbar
* Radio Paradise Toolbar
* AOL Toolbar
* [Unofficial] MySpace Toolbar
* Renkoo Toolbar
* WordLearner Toolbar
* ToolbarMS (The MySpace) Toolbar
* Calorie-Count.com Toolbar
* BzPower Toolbar
* Shaastra Toolbar
* Monalo Toolbar
* MyCountry.co.uk Toolbar
* The AustLII Toolbar
* eMusic Toolbar
* Cypher Toolbar
* Torrent Finder Toolbar
Toolbar Uninstaller has a very useful feature which is able to update the detection signature file. So make sure you check for latest detection signature file before using it to uninstall toolbars.
It is free, small and very useful tool to easily remove multiple toolbar. Although it requires installation, you can copy the Toolbar Uninstaller folder from Program Files to your USB flash drive and bring it everywhere with you.