GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar Removal Guide

Do you know what GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar is?

There is nothing to be excited about the GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar, since it is merely a malicious toolbar that users should remove as soon as they can. On the surface the toolbar is presented as an application that is set to help users with their gardening hobby by providing links to the most relevant gardening websites. This is all well and good, but the toolbar is made to replace your existing homepage and search provider for a modified version of Ask.com that is untrustworthy.

GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar has been created by none other than Mindspark Interactive Network Inc. This malware developer is widely known troublemaker in the industry. We always keep an eye out for their new “products” that we call by their proper name – infections. Mindspark has been very active recently. The newest additions to their fleet include DownloadManagerTool Toolbar, EasyMailLogin Toolbar, InternetSpeedUtility Toolbar, and many others.GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar Removal GuideGardeningEnthusiast Toolbar screenshot
Scroll down for full removal instructions

The toolbar is known to be distributed using software bundling, which is a common practice among malware developers. We warn users to be more cautious when installing software bundles from freeware distributing websites, since they might contain adware, browser hijackers, and bad toolbars, such as GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar. Nevertheless, the toolbar has its own promotional website at Gardeningenthusiast.com. The toolbar is compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. Now that we know where it comes from, let us move on to the part where we discuss its functionality.

GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar contains links to various gardening websites that are legitimate and useful. But their owners probably do not even know that their websites are featured on a malicious toolbar that can discredit them. At any rate, the websites will give you free advice on gardening design ideas, gardening tips, plant identification, and so on. That is basically it. The toolbar features a dozen of links to various legitimate websites that you could easily find on your own and bookmark yourself. We believe that there is no reason the keep this malicious application.

After installing the program, it will immediately change your default homepage and search provider to a Mindspark-modified version of Ask.com. The search engine uses browser cookies to keep tabs on the user’s browsing habits by gathering information regarding browsing and search history, geographical location, and browser settings. This information is needed to customize the search results to possibly include one or two sponsored websites that can be unreliable. In any event its search engine is not the best alternative. Considering what was said above, we think that it would be best if you remove GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar as soon as possible.

If you want to get rid of this application, please follow the instructions that we have provided. It must be said that not all steps can be necessary, since oftentimes the applications only installs itself on the browser. But we have included instructions for removing it from Windows anyway. You can also use our recommended antimalware scanner that will do the dirty work for you. It is all up to you. It is time to take action. If you encounter any difficulties, please leave a comment, and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

How to remove GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar from your computer

Windows 8 and 8.1

  1. Navigate the mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen.
  2. Open the Charm bar and Select Settings.
  3. Go to the Control Panel.
  4. Open Uninstall a program and Uninstall GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar.

Windows 7 and Vista

  1. Navigate the mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen.
  2. Open the Start menu, and click Control Panel.
  3. Select Uninstall a program and Uninstall GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar.

Windows XP

  1. Navigate the mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen.
  2. Open the Start menu, and click Control Panel.
  3. Select Add or Remove Programs and Remove GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar.

How to remove GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar from the browser

Microsoft Internet Explorer

  1. Simultaneously press Alt+T, and select Manage Add-ons.
  2. Go to Toolbars and Extensions.
  3. Find GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar, and click Disable/Remove.

Google Chrome

  1. Simultaneously press Alt+F, and select More tools.
  2. Click Extenssions.
  3. Find GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar.
  4. Click the trash can icon, and click Remove.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Simultaneously press Ctrl+Shift+A, go to Extensions.
  2. Find GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar, and click Remove/Disable.

I non techie terms:

GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar is a bad toolbar that changes your browser’s homepage and search provider for a customized version of Ask.com, which is promoted via the Mindspark malware. The application uses browser cookies to gather information about the user to customize search result, which are unreliable and potentially dangerous, since there is no way of knowing what is actually promoted via the search engine. So we suggest that you remove GardeningEnthusiast Toolbar.