I got a little tired of trying to send and receive files over IM using Trillian, so I gave in and installed Yahoo! Instant Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger again. I have had these programs installed for over three years, so I figured I would give it a shot.

I knew that there were going to be bundled products. Before even running YIM, I removed their helper program (that was a new one to me), the toolbar, and mail. It downloaded Flash and installed that as well. I deselected all of the add-on and preference options as I do not regularly use Yahoo! for anything other than instant messaging.

I started YIM and opened Firefox. The installer also installed the Yahoo! toolbar for Firefox, with Firefox’s growing market share that was not unexpected. I clicked on the toolbar to see if I would give it a shot (slim chance) and saw a remove this option. It intrigued me, so I clicked it. It opened a “Why is there a Yahoo! menu on the menu bar of my browser?” page.

After browsing through the help pages for a few minutes, I was disturbed. Nearly every problem referenced a corrupt profile. In the past two and a half years, I have only once had to create a new profile. I install and uninstall extensions on a weekly, if not daily, basis. It also mentions fixes in the about:config. While I have no problems making any of these changes, I find it disturbing that this stealth installation could corrupt the customizations I have worked so hard to make.