Snap.do

[Mark Hennessy]

Don't use Google Chrome. It's not as bad as Internet Explorer but like Mark, I don't trust google. Firefox is a bit memory hungry too, so try Opera.

Probably best not to throw any more browser suggestions at poor Col until he's back on an even keel

For what it's worth, on my Ubuntu machine at home (so this is from memory), Firefox with about 30 to 50 open tabs requires about half a GB of RAM. Chrome with about 15-20 tabs requires more than a GB. It has a very different operating model to Firefox, which partly explains the speed, but it is much, much more memory-hungry than FF. For an older machine with a slow CPU but plenty of RAM, Chrome might be OK - I have to use it because my CPU is "only" 3GHz (that's because of Ubuntu, but that's another "rant"!). There is 2GB RAM - both in RAM and CPU terms the motherboard is "max'd out" - and running an email program and the two browsers pretty much fills up the available RAM!

Col, just in case you're not aware, install something called AddBlockPlus (just Google it), which blocks adverts and offers some additional protection against certain types of web threats.

The instructions in the first link Steve provided so seem pretty clear, so do try to persevere. The key thing to understand is that programmes can install themselves on Windows as applications, or as browser "add-ins" - AddBlockPlus is an example of the latter. These add-ins are stored within the browser's "ecosystem", and don't generally appear in the Windows "Programs and Features" part of the Control Panel. Each browser has a different way of managing add-ins.

To be honest, I'd simply do a complete uninstall of Chrome, and never install it again - that's because when you uninstall Chrome, it leaves folders on the hard drive containing the various add-ins that you used - so that when you next install Chrome, it will find them and use them for you. That's why uninstalling/reinstalling Chrome earlier didn't help.

While the files are sitting on the hard drive, they are probably doing no harm whatsoever, but if you wanted to, you could simply delete the folder containing them (which would be something like C:\Users\Colin\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\) after you'd uninstalled Chrome, but do be very careful

There is some more advice here which might be worth reading (especially the comments from Snap.do themselves!): http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Technolog...36299.html

And http://www.snapdoapp.com/faq/SnapDo/FAQ_ENG.html

For what it's worth, Snap.do isn't a virus or malware, which is why it's not been found by anything (I didn't check last night before posting as it was late). It's just a bit pointless and irritating, and perhaps not 100% trustworthy - hard to be sure. Either way, it does need to go - many of these browsers "enhancements" can be a source of vulnerability. In general, don't install any of the various toolbars that are offered, and when installing software that you do need (e.g. Flash), pay attention to all of the installation screens, because you normally have to remove a tick from a box to avoid having the latest Google or Ask Jeeves toolbar installed on your system. It's a jungle out there, so keep eyes and ears open

All the best,

Mark