[mrerick]

There are a number of things that can manipulate your workstation, and they are getting quite a bit more aggressive.

Things like the "Disconnect" browser add-on and "NoScript" (which is a more drastic approach to this) will help stop things from the Internet from doing this within your browser.

When you run someone's full software installer, anything goes. You effectively give the installer full access to your computer, and they sometimes modify things and install new things with abandon. "Disconnect" is open source, and based upon a donation model for support.

I didn't encounter any wierd stuff when I installed it, except that it will keep prompting you to donate until you tell it that you have.

Marc