URGENT NOTICE ABOUT SCAMWARE "Conduit Toolbar"
After years of deceptive business practices, we urge you to completely uninstall this malware program. Explanation:
Please be aware that we no longer support this
Conduit Toolbar. It was created in 2009, and has only had minor updates in the years that followed. However, the company, Conduit, gives
no direct option for publishers to remove the toolbar from publication. They also appear to make it
intentionally difficult for end-users to remove the toolbar, which appears to hijack the homepage and browser search, if not careful. Therefore, it is stuck. We do not support this software because:
This toolbar is now known as malware across the entire Internet.
1) The corporate geniuses, such as
Ido Imiat, at Conduit, think that this logo was created by Microsoft Corporation:
It was not. It was created for Windows8Forums.com and variations of it are subsequently used here on WindowsForum.com. Between 2009 - 2010, thousands of people downloaded and were actively using this toolbar. Two years later, Conduit complained. They also laid the same claim, years ago, with a separate icon that was used for W7F (see the composite image below). Because of this, they removed our icon on the toolbar and replaced it with a giant letter "C" for Conduit, nearly three years after the toolbar was already in use.
They even renamed the Windows8Forums.com toolbar to a random string of numbers and letters recently. Even though it has been explained to them that Microsoft is aware of our sites and that we are a member of the Microsoft Partner Program, they do not care. I have been invited to Redmond, WA three years in a row. We have a direct line of contact to the company and I know full well that Microsoft supports their third party communities and have promoted them extensively with programs such as the Microsoft Community Contributor badge. Plus, Microsoft has never created an image similar to this, or the one in my avatar, to represent any of their products:
This activity is considered a violation of the terms and conditions of the
Publisher Agreement that you accepted prior to using the Conduit platform.
Therefore, we ask you to change your toolbar name and to remove any content that may violate the Publisher Agreement from your toolbar within 48 hours of receiving this e-mail. (If not, we will remove it).
2) Conduit makes the Conduit Toolbar exceedingly difficult to uninstall for the end-user,
as if it is a virus. In fact, it is now referred to as the "Conduit Virus" in many circles. They often hide their own branding to avoid dealing with customer satisfaction problems.
3) They deleted an entire toolbar because the name of it was "Windows 8 Forums", even though they continue to approve the Windows 7 Forums toolbar!
4) In February, one of the Conduit executives,
Victor Vlad, has e-mailed us trying to reach Techspot.com. This was the final nail in the coffin for me. He is the team leader of "Qualification Management".
It is my opinion that this software is malware. In 2009, thousands of people were using this toolbar on a regular basis. As part of the publisher agreement and platform, Conduit was supposed to share revenue when certain features of the toolbar were used. We never saw a dime of this money! The only time we ever received a commission for this toolbar was when we lodged a
public complaint here. The CFO of the entire company,
Roy Gen, had to manually send us a payment via PayPal. Many people complain of these issues, but end-users seem to have even more difficulties. Four months after creating the toolbar, we received a big sum from Roy. It was earned and in the system. Then, after years of thousands of people using this toolbar, and after lodging this complaint, we NEVER received a single commission payment again, even though their system regularly stated it owed us money. It would reset at the end of every month! It never occurred to me that Conduit makes it almost impossible to uninstall this thing for people who are not astute computer users.
Beware of these toolbars!
How to Completely Uninstall Conduit Toolbar
A detailed guide to uninstall what is now known as the "Conduit" virus malware:
http://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-conduit-search-virus/
