tl;dr: Don’t install DBComparer because it may install crapware for you.
Last week, I needed to use a SQL SERVER 2008 database compare tool for work. After searching for clues on Stackoverflow, I decided to give DBComparer a try! I am generally a very careful person on what I install and I remember having used this tool before so I gave it another go. I distinctly remember telling it to NOT install the babylon toolbar on my machine. Few days later, I installed SSMS Tool Pack.
Then, I started noticing that my machine was slowing down. All of a sudden, my search defaults were changed to babylon. I uninstalled the extensions from chrome, reset the search defaults and continued on my way. The machine continued to crawl. I had an SSD on there and opening a simple txt file would take 5 seconds when normally it would take less than 1. I immediately uninstalled SSMS Tool Pack thinking it was the culprit but even that didn’t help. I ended up having to wipe the machine. Completely. The SSD is now sitting on my desk.
Today, I asked the author of SSMS Tools Pack, Mladen Prajdic about babylon in his installer. He quickly pointed out that his tool pack does not use it. I installed his tool pack and no Babylon. And I apologized for rushing to judgement.
So I dug around a bit more and came up with what I found to be the culprit. I’m not sure if its intentional on DBComparer’s part but they really should take that crapware off! I am a little pissed off about this. See highlighted at the bottom on the image. [Google Cache Source of image]
To reiterate, it says “…we may show optional offers, such as the Babylon Toolbar.” Now, I did download the installer for the DbCompare site directly. Did they add it in?
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