A common disguise that adware takes on is that of being a helpful or useful program. Some will even pretend to be antispyware programs! Others pretend to be useful little addons to your browser window, called Browser Helper Objects, or BHO’s. These are some especially irritating little bugs that are actually Browser Hijackers, of which .FastLook is quite an example. This program was discovered in April of 2005, and is a high risk warning. It’s such a successful bug at what it does that it has over 30 clones, adware programs that are just like it, out there.

What this program tries to look like is a toolbar addition to Internet Explorer. It somewhat resembles the new feature that most search engines have called a link toolbar. The problem of it is that the user doesn’t get to define where the links lead to. It has links for Pharmacy, Gambling, Casino, Finance, Insurance, Adult, Dating, Computers, and Travel, along with a search window to the left side. In this toolbar alone, we have several clues that something isn’t legitimate about what’s going on here. The redundancy of Gambling and Casino, for instance. The inclusion of an “Adult” button is also a clue that something not quite legitimate is going on here. If only this is what this program does, it wouldn’t be so bad.

As said earlier, .FastLook is a Browser Hijacker. This means that along with your nifty new toolbar, you also get your home page reset to one of its choosing. Also, your browsing will get redirected to sites that it chooses. In short, it hijacks your browser in a very real sense. But wait, there’s more.

You also get pop up ads. With all these features, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some computers froze up altogether with this bug. These aren’t just small little hokey pop ups, either. Each one is its own browser window. When your browser gets taken over by this one, it gets taken over.

Along with this program comes a whole gang of registry changes. This activity, along with hijacking your browser and showing popups, costs your computer a lot in the way of resources. Mostly, it costs your computer in the way of running memory, since apparently there is no sending your information out on the Internet involved with one of these infections. That alone is enough, though.

As always, I highly recommend that every computer logged on the Internet should have a complete security suite of protective software. Adware is the fastest evolving of the internet parasites out there, so choose your antispyware program carefully. You should choose SpyZooka, since it’s the only antispyware program that does keep up with the evolutions in adware. We have a robot that scans the internet 24/7 looking for now spyware definitions to add to our list. If a new adware comes out, we will know about it and have a fix ready within minutes. That’s how we can have our 100% removal guarantee, and that’s why we’re the only ones who do.