Getting rid of Ask.com

Last night I decided to have a relatively early night, but made the fatal mistake of deciding to look something up on the web on the way.

I opened a new tab on Firefox, and hit the Home icon, to find to my horror that instead of seeing my default search engine (Google) I was confronted by something called Ask.com, which had not only insinuated itself into my system as a new default search engine, but had installed a couple of unsolicited toolbars with handy links to places like amazon.com and Facebook that I do not find handy at all (or I would have installed them myself).

I next did the simple and obvious thing – opened Internet Options and replaced the Ask.com string with www.google.com.au.  This made no difference whatever, and when I had another look at the default search engine in Internet Options, there was the Ask.com string again. I tried shutting and restarting Firefox, and doing a complete restart, after restoring Google as the default, all to no avail.

I then started looking on the web to see whether other people had encountered this problem. Indeed they have, and a variety of potential solutions is offered. I tried the easiest ones first, and none of them worked. Then I found someone who seemed to know what he was talking about, on a site called ITechLog. The bad news is that Ask.com inserts three sets of entries into your systems registry, and you cannot get rid of the damned thing without doing a registry edit.

This is never something to be embarked on lightly by the average mug IT user, but if you follow the steps carefully you cannot go too far wrong. 

The ITechLog solution, directed to Vista users, may be found here.  I could not find the third entry that needs to be replaced (extension.snipit.chrome), which may have something to do with the fact that I am in Windows 7 rather than Vista, but having made the first two changes I used the filter to find any other entries associated with Ask.com. I found one with a name to the effect that it is the preferred search engine and replaced that with Google.com.au, and another entry with a name indicating it is to be launched on startup; here I replaced the Ask.com string with the Google string copied from the ITechLog solution.

This all worked in the way it is intended to, but the strings I have inserted mean that without another registry edit with a Google string I do not have I now have Google.com as my default search engine. This means that I have lost the facility to give preference to Australian web pages unless I take the further step of going to Google.com.au. Not happy.

And so much for the early night.

Adobe Customer Support

Adobe Systems could hardly be accused of being passionate about supporting their customers.

A couple of weeks ago my computer died, and last week I embarked on the tedious task of reloading software, including Acrobat 8 which I purchased by download in 2006.

Having paid an extra $US3.00 for the right to re-download at any time, I downloaded Acrobat 8 and installed it on my machine, using the serial number supplied with the download. I was then asked to activate it, and on attempting to do that received a message to the effect that I had used up my activation limit. I should de-activate it on the other computer and try again. As both the screen and the motherboard of the computer in question had failed, this is a bit difficult.

I rang the Adobe Systems customer support number in Australia, only to be told that in order to serve me better they do not deal with activation issues over the phone, only online.

I navigated my way around the very cumbersome customer support regions of the Adobe Systems website (a time consuming process at 3-4 minutes per page load) and finally “opened” a “case” in the following terms:

I recently re-downloaded Acrobat 8 to install it on a new computer, as the old one has died (motherboard and screen both failed).

Upon trying to activate the new installation I received a message that I have reached my activation limit and must therefore deactivate it on the old computer. As this is not possible, could you please deactivate all current installations. I have no installed copies apart from the one I am trying to activate now.

My purchase order number is XXXXXXXXXXX.

Serial number is XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thank you

Is that reasonably clear?

Today, a week after opening my “case”, I received a message from Adobe Systems in the following terms:

Good day!

Thank you for contacting Adobe Technical Support.

I understand that you are having an issue trying to activate your Acrobat 8 copy. To better assist you with this, please call our Customer Service department at 1800 614 863 .

Please be in front of your computer in doing so since they would need to get the necessary codes to activate your product.

They are open from Monday to Friday.

In order to assure correct processing, please reference the case number when contacting Adobe regarding this matter.

So Adobe Systems can better assist me if I ring the people who can better assist me if these matters are handled exclusively online.

Anyway, I have called the number and so far have been on hold for 1 hour and 30 minutes. I don’t call that a telephone service that anyone can use.

Wouldn’t it be better if someone just dealt with the “case”?