When Free Software Isn’t Free

Yesterday while searching through tech sites looking for articles to use on our Facebook feed, I ran across a review of a free utility application for Windows. The program, Toolbar Cleaner, basically aids the user in removing unnecessary programs that might be slowing a Windows machine down, such as toolbars and browser plugins and extensions. Need I mention that most toolbars were probably installed by other free programs for Windows? Reviewing the product for PCWorld was Mark O???Neill, who thought this program was as peachy keen as it gets. Not only would it remove toolbars and plugins for those who couldn’t figure out how to do it themselves, it would also let the user tick away anything unwanted that’s scheduled to run at start-up, even though it offered no hints about which apps might be necessary and which are not.