Virus and Spyware in Alexa Toolbar!

Posted by dkszone on June 21, 2009

Alexa toolbar is one of the most used toolbars by Webmasters for tracking traffic rank. It is facing conflict with most of popular Security Software. We faced one such problem while installing Alexa Toolbar on a PC enabled with Free edition of Avira AntiVir Antivirus software.


The installation of Alexa Toolbar would never get smoother. Avira AntiVir shoots up virus message as DR/AlexaBar.N.207 Dropper! We proceeded through the installation by selecting ‘ignore‘ option.


After installation, we opened Internet Explorer. Avira this time identified “AlxRes.dll” as having patterns of ‘ADSPY/AlexaBar.N.9‘ adware or spyware.



A quick search in internet said it all. Most of the Security Software identify Alexa Toolbar as Virus/Spyware/Adware. This is a false positive (legitimate process/code is identified by security software as malicious). Lets hope they (Alexa or Security Product companies) fix it soon! Let us know your experiences in the Comments section.

UPDATE: Another example of False Positive given by Avira is for MP3MYMP3 Player, in which it gives a warning for “ADSPY/Relevant.0 adware or spyware“.