* Yahoo toolbar uses PestPatrol technology to fight spyware
“Yahoo” is an interesting name for the well-known Internet service. It is now probably the first sense of the word for some of our younger Internet users.
Somewhat older users of English, especially American English, might think of the word as an expression of enthusiasm. Then there are people like me who are _really_ old (at least, so my undergraduate students born after 1985 tell me) for whom the word evokes the brutish caricatures of humanity described in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 book _Gulliver’s Travels_, when the peripatetic hero visits the land of noble talking horses (the Houyhnhnms).
Anyway, last May, Yahoo announced security improvements to its popular toolbar add-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows. In addition to the usual Yahoo search-engine field, the toolbar now includes a pop-up blocker and an anti-spyware product. The production version is now available free.
The anti-spyware function is based on my old friend Bob Bales’ PestPatrol product. PestPatrol was acquired by Computer Associates in 2004. I’ve been using PestPatrol for years and have been completely satisfied with its functions. I’ve configured the original product for automatic updates before each system scan, and that seems to keep up with all the dratted spyware.
Having the anti-spyware function easily available on the browser toolbar and automatically updated by Yahoo servers makes a lot of sense because it will encourage less technical users to click that button more often than they might run PestPatrol itself.
As for the pop-up blocker, it brings Internet Explorer almost to the functional level of my favorite browser, Opera, which has had such functionality for years.
