Desktop Smiley Review

www.desktopsmiley.com

Overall 1.00 of 5 (by 1 user)

MomOfAFlock
Harrisonville, MO

Downloading Desktop Smiley was a HUGE mistake!

simple is good, Every day computer user, a busy person

Cons

Pop-ups, Secret program running on your computer

DEC

2008

A week or so ago, my daughter was searching for free emoticons on the internet, and came across Desktop Smiley. This website offers 1,000's of free emoticons, as well as free screensavers and wallpapers. All you have to do is download the desktop smiley toolbar.

If you are considering this, STOP NOW!!!!. We downloaded the toolbar, (on two computers no less,) and from then on we were inundated with pop-ups. Our internet explorer pop-up blocker missed them all, so did our Yahoo pop-up blocker. I began to suspect that the desktop smiley toolbar had something to do with it, so I went into the control panel and uninstalled the toolbar. We still had pop-ups. Over and over. Pages and pages would be behind whatever we were working on. Finally, I investigated to see if anything else had installed at the same time as the DesktopSmiley toolbar. Sure enough, there were two other ulitlites that had installed on the same day. After I uninstalled those, everything went back to normal.

Basically, you get the free emoticons, screensavers and wallpaper in exchange for opening a door to the pop-up ads. Your computer is inviting them in, so the pop-up blockers don't reject them. I encourage all to avoid these sites at all cost. Who knows, had we not caught the source in time, my computer might have invited a malicious virus with open arms.

Desktop Smiley is not recommended by MomOfAFlock

Review inappropriate? Copyright violation?

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Comments about MomOfAFlock’s Review

Thanks - this worked perfectly!

In response to mal138's comment from May 14, 2009 at 1:07AM:

thank you now my computer is working fine

what was the second thing you uninstalled

Go to Control panel and then to programs: Don't uninstall
Desktop Smiley Toolbar till last, so you can check the correct date you added it to your computer. Then check for even program that loaded that same day: mine were: Internet Saving Optimizer;
Media Access Startup; System search Dispatcher - there was another but I did not keep the name, it was a gambling site. When U have deteted all the programs loaded that same day, delete Desktop Smiley Toolbar ... follow the instructions carefully - close your browser, and continue to request the program be uninstalled - to get rid of the pop ups U need to get rid of those not so friendly smileys!

I believe one of those utilities is System Search Dispatcher. Some web searches associated this program with desktopsmiley.com as well.

it would be extremely helpful if you remembered what those other 2 utilities were named - some problem here, one lousy piece of a husband installed the damn thing, though specifically asked NOT to install anything.