Bing ads link to adware-infested Internet Explorer as sponsored links go under the microscope

To find out how bad the download sites available are, we searched for some of the most popular free software online, on both Bing and Google. In all cases we noted down what the top download link was and if it was official or not. We’ve also noted if the manufacturer has had to pay for the top link. Where an unofficial download site was listed, we visited it and downloaded the custom installer, making a note of which additional software it attempted to install on our computer. We then downloaded the official installer from the software manufacturer and noted down and additional optional bits of software. You can see these results in the table below, and you can scroll further down the page to view a list of the software that found and what it does.

What the applications do

Once we’d got a list of the additional software, we also found out what it did, and you can find the results in the table below. First a quick explanation of the ‘Function’ column. An ad injector is a bit of software that puts its ads into websites automatiically; a news injector does the same thing, but puts in links to headlines; a search toolbar puts a new search bar into your browser, with searches performed in the matching search engine; driver and software updaters charge you to find outdated software and update them; cleaners try and charge you to fix the problems they’ve discovered; and surveys try and make you fill out questionnaires.