In this case, malware is the incorrect term. It's not malware that is out to be malicious, it's extra bundled crapware that pays money back to the distributer who got you to install it. Every vendor IE toolbars does it, even some OSS software packages include some of this in their official installers to offset some of their out of pocket costs for providing free software. The software is legitimate in that it's produced by Microsoft, Google, or other software vendors, it's just crap that you didn't really want and probably wouldn't have installed had you been paying attention to the installer. The bad part of this is C|Net is adding this to the official installers without the content of the original packager. I'm sure if you were paying attention you would realize that you're downloading C|net's "installer" that installs the crapware, then downloads and installs the official package for you. Very disrespectful on C|Net's part for doing this. It's not like they don't already have enough misleading "download" links and advertisements on the download.com site, but still not malware in my opinion. -- Andrew S. Zbikowski | http://andy.zibnet.us IT Outhouse Blog Thing | http://www.itouthouse.com