avast Browser Cleanup is a free stand alone tool released by security firm Avast to find and remove annoying addons that not only cause trouble to users, but also invade user privacy.
Some times when you install free software’s on your windows system, the freewares not only install their programs,but also asks you to install unwanted addons or tool bars on your browser, saying them as good Samaritans for your browsers. Although these toolbars are sponsors of the freeware programs and support their development, but they will be troublesome to users .
Generally these toolbars , when installed on your browser will change your homepage and changes default search engine without your consent,the search results will be manipulated. Not only this, the toolbars will analyze your preferences and behavior and send this data to other vendors where it’s used to present user specific ads.
So,if you installed the annoying addons or toolbars knowingly or unknowingly and you want to get rid-of them from your browser,but you don’t know how to remove them or the toolbars is preventing you from un-installing it. Then just install this nifty tool from avast called “Browser Cleanup” which is capable of removing annoying addons and toolbars from three popular browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
avast Browser Cleanup is integrated in avast 8 and is also available as a stand-alone product for users without avast 8. Once you run this app, it will detect and list addons or tool bars on your browser with poor user rating. The app provides options to either un-install (remove) well-known toolbars or to disable them in the Browser specific tabs on the list.
One has to note that with the recent update, Google Chrome browser has the ability to prevent these kind of perverts entering your browser by automatically disabling third-party addons, which means addons outside chrome webstore will be disabled and provides options to the users to either enable or remove them.
According to avast, 20 days after release of Browser Cleanup tool they found that more than 220,000 different browser add-ons for the three main browsers(IE,Chrome and Firefox) and more than 8,000 new addons popup every day, among these addons, 74% has bad or very bad rating .
More interestingly they found that one third of all toolbars are from only three companies, avast even listed top 20 addons with a bad or very bad user rating.
Download: avast Browser Cleanup