Unwanted toolbars and unknown notifications icon

[Jamed]

Hello again everyone.
I have a small symbol in the notifications icons of a smiley face. It does not have a title but has appeared after I installed some software from CNET. It does not give me the option to hide or remove it and nothing is in the control panel to let me uninstall it. All my browsers now have babylon toolbar and search bar too? :/ Is this some kind of virus? Any help is appreciated.
I am using avast btw.

 

[TheGeeza]

Hi Jamed,
Babylon search has been widely recognized as a browser hijacker so it’s best to remove it as soon as possible.
I use Malwarebytes and avast. In avast go to the browser clean-up tab and remove all the browser addons and toolbars etc that avast has deemed malicious. Then perform a full system scan with both avast and malwarebytes. (Do not perform both scans at the same time). Once they have finished they should have found the threats and removed them. (With malwarebytes you need to tick the boxes next to the detected objects before pressing remove selected.) Restart your PC and any unwanted apps, toolbars , etc should be gone.
PS. Try not to download from CNET. They have a tendency to include some pretty nasty stuff in their installers. If you do download from them again, scan the files you have downloaded first before installing anything and make sure that you untick the occasional " make babylon or ask.com my homepage" option .

 

[Jamed]

Thank you very much for your reply Malwarebytes found 24 objects which I guess is alot hahaha. The unknown icon has gone and my browser is now much faster without the wierd toolbars. Thanks again. +rep

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thank you very much for your reply Malwarebytes found 24 objects which I guess is alot hahaha. The unknown icon has gone and my browser is now much faster without the wierd toolbars. Thanks again. +rep

Steer clear of any downloads from CNET, they're pretty much all rigged.

 

[Wozza63]

Its a shame, CNET used to be the best place to download free software,

 

[ubuysa]

Steer clear of any downloads from CNET, they're pretty much all rigged.

Certainly CNET downloads usually come packaged with Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) but I've never yet seen malware from CNET. When you're installing ANY software you need to pay very close attention to every single install dialog box and make sure you don't install software you don't want. More and more freeware is paid for these days by packaging PUPs in with the installer, so you have to be vigilant when installing, never perform a "standard" installation and never click Yes/Ok/Agree without reading and understanding what you're being asked to agree to.