There are plenty of free browsers out there and it shouldn’t come as a surprise in the myriad of choices, some may contain malware, spyware or even viruses.  Out of all the choices, I have found one that should be avoided at all costs.

Most of us will be familiar with Firefox and Opera but most of the other free browsers use the IE engine for rendering purposes while building in other features such as tabs, skins, media controls, etc.  One of the most unique browsers in this class is PhaseOut but it’s one to avoid.

PhaseOut has a lot going for it, skins, tabs, pop up blocker, cleanup function, preview bar, photomail and several other interesting features.  That’s not enough to save it from a very serious flaw.  For whatever reason, after installing PhaseOut you will find yourself infected with NavExcel which SiteAdvisor classifies as an “unwanted adware” browser modifier.

F-Secure classifies NavExcel as a spyware data miner that collects browsing habits and reports it back home (most likely to deliver advertising).  Things go from bad to worse, some components of the program operate in a stealth mode.

Where Windows Vista is concerned if you have UAC enabled either in normal or “quiet” mode, the vitalization abilities of it should provide some degree of protection.  You still don’t want it running around on your system.  SpywareDoctor was able to immediately identify and quarantine the threat during installation.

Despite being able to quarantine the threat, it would be difficult for me to recommend any browser that claims “No Spyware, No Adware, Transparent setup” when it obviously none of that is true.

Download.com claims to have tested it and found it to be “safe and spyware free” but McAfee, SpywareDoctor and F-Secure (and others) would disagree with that assessment.  PhaseOut 5.3 and 5.4.4 contain NavExcel.

To prevent these kinds of “attacks,” I highly recommend installing SiteAdvisor (available for IE and Firefox) which would have told you the download was infected before even starting it.

Related:

Entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 10:22 am under Internet, Security.

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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