My Way Engine

New?

[christopher]

Hi,

I need my eyes testing. Yikes! Seeing double.

Came across this engine called My Way - and it's very Yahoo ish.

Infact it's a duplicate.

What gives?

[pmac]

Been around for a while now. Results by Google.

[Shak]

and just bought out by ASK jeeves :)

shak

[christopher]

Well okay, perhaps I jumped the gun a bit, but although they didn't copy Yahoo design, I'm talking about the 'idea' being a very similar portal, same colour scheme and ad areas etc.

Okay, I must admit I only looked at the homepage at first, but on looking further, noticed small Google type bars in the directory categories......

The mind boggles.

What about Galaxy then? They were the first engine ever - and Yahoo copied them.

I rekon there are some sneaky backhanders going on. lol

[christopher]

Is MyWay connected to MySearch Toolbar?

Anybody know this?

[Timotheos]

MyWay has been around fow awhile now. In fact their first ads had "Yahoo is toast!" with burnt toast coming out of a toaster. It looked pretty cool. Needless to say they no longer are using that ad campaign.

[christopher]

Interesting, but ARE they connected to the MySearch Toolbar - do you know?

[kevinpate]

MyWay (I think) is basically iwon without all the ads, contests, yada, yada, yada. I like the clean interface and todo a quick snapshot for comparing, you can view results from google, ask,alta, atw and looksmart fairly quick.

[sidyadav]

Interesting, but ARE they connected to the MySearch Toolbar - do you know?

Yes. Infact, the MySearch toolbar is their own toolbar:
[kd.mysearch.myway.com...]

Sid

[christopher]

Many Thanks

[chairwars]

They also have mysearch.com

[christopher]

Don't use them. The toolbar and site will attach itself to browsers and you can't delete it.

Bad one!

[robjones]

Yeah it's strange to me that they would pride themselves on not having ads on their site while at the same time having a toolbar with a bad reputation as spyware.

From the MyWay homepage:

IMPORTANT: We do not present our users with pop-ups, banners or any other non-text advertising. Nor do we send email to
our users. If you see or receive one of these items, it is coming from an outside source, either as a result of something you
have previously downloaded or as an "exit" pop-up from the site you just visited. It is not coming from our site

[sidyadav]

Who needs them when you can use the official toolbars?
(Google, AskJeeves, AltaVista, Alexa, Yahoo and/or MSN)
- much more trust worthy.

(I use em' all :))

Sid

[nate_king1]

Their parent company is InteractiveSearchHoldings.com which own Myway MySearch MyWebSearch Excite IWon and a ad network MaxOnline.
They get most of their traffic to the MyWay, MySearch, and MyWebSearch via adware Toolbars, either through FunWebProducts.com or partnerships with Kazza, etc. The main revenue partnerhip is with Google Adwords which they get a cut of the click on the Sponsord listing(Including IWON).
Excite is partnered with InfospaceInc.com which owns dogpile, webcrawler, infospace.com. That is why the results look similar :).
The company is private and has gross revenues of $100 Million or more(estimated). The company just sold to AskJeeves for over $300 in cash and stock. www.irconnect.com/askjinc/pages/news_releases.html?d=53659

[sidyadav]

The company just sold to AskJeeves for over $300 in cash and stock.

you mean $300 million :)

Sid

[cyberfyber]

Aren't these the folks whose pesky trojan I've spent what seemed like forever trying to get rid of? (or is it someone else?)

btw, got rid of it finally by using, SpySweeper.

[nate_king1]

Yes 300 Million USD (valued). Probably the same people - I mean when you do a search for MySearch on Google and you see nothing but ads for Adware removal that isn't a good sign.

[sem4u]

They have been around for a while now. I like their e-mail and news coverage. They provide a small stream of referrals too.

[christopher]

I hope Ask Jeeves are aware of this nasty bad little toolbar and will remove it from use.

Pleasey Pleasy.

What's their customer service team like? Perhaps if someone contacted them, they might get rid of this trojan.

[nate_king1]

I highly doubt they are going to stop the AdWare.

[christopher]

But surely, it's got to be in their best interests to.

Trojans downloading themselves in people's browsers can irritate - well I know it does:

Erasing hard drive

Re-installing every package/files/word documents etc

Total time spent on myself getting the system back to normal is about 2 hrs every time.

And no - Second Chance don't get rid of this trojan!

So, I've got to fork out for spyware remover just cos this thing does the rounds.

I don't think so.

Ask Jeeves is very nice indeed, and if they weren't so big, I'd tell them where to go. lol lol lol

I'm not the only one that complains about this kind of thing. I think it's high time some company took major action and develop a totally free device to stop these trojans/viruses once and for all.

[Muscle13]

From what I read its not adware or spyware its just a tool bar

From the my search toolbar license agreement---

THE MY SEARCH APPLICATION IS SPYWARE FREE AND NO REGISTRATION OR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS REQUIRED FOR USE.

From the Smiley Central web page---

What is this toolbar on my browser for?

Internet Explorer users: Your toolbar attaches to your browser and provides one-click access to Smiley Central and other cool tools, plus your favorite search providers - including Google, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, AlltheWeb and LookSmart! Just enter a search term into the blank search field and click any search provider button to get instant results from the Web's leading search engines!

Please note: Your toolbar includes NO spyware and NO adware, and is 100% FREE.

[christopher]

Thanks. I'll still stay clear of it though, as it's not permission based.

I originally picked it up from a traffic exchange, so it has certainly been made to auto download, or else it has to be part of a trojan.

It's not the downloading of it that I mind, it's just that this toolbar seriously causes PC problems:

Slows the PC right down

Makes the mouse etc stick

Can make a PC 'lock up'

etc etc.

See - bad news.

[Muscle13]

Sounds like it needs to be cleaned up. I hope Ask Jeeves fixes the problems since they will be owning MyWay/MySearch soon. What do you guys think of the other search toolbars out there? Do they cause similar problems or not. Thanks

[Muscle13]

Found this in a recent article

Toolbar Spyware Controversy
Interactive Search Holdings was an early mover in the toolbar arena, and toolbars from its various properties are widely distributed. Unlike Ask Jeeves' core search platform strategy, which relies on users visiting AskJeeves.com or Teoma.com, the ISH search toolbars strengthen the company's "acquisition point" strategy, capturing traffic from users that otherwise might not visit a search engine home page, since toolbars work independently of the current page being viewed.

Rumors that Interactive Search Holdings search toolbars contained adware or spyware have dogged the company for years. Berkowitz denies that current versions of the toolbars contain spyware, though he acknowledges that there were problems with policies of early distribution partners.

"[Interactive Search Holdings] policies are extremely clean," he said. "They're working very very hard to clean this stuff up. These guys don't even do an automatic update. They've spent a lot of time working with the spyware companies to make sure that they're not considered spyware."

[searchenginewatch.com...]