IE Has Facebook, Twitter, E-Mail Popup at Lower Left of Screen

[pmillen]

How do I get rid of this annoying thing that often appears at the lower left of my Internet Explorer screen, just above the Start button? I can click on the X to reduce it but I want it gone.

 

[clifford_cooley]

It seems to be independent from IE. Have you checked Programs and Features for anything that resembles what this may be? However if it is IE, check the add-on list for it.

 

[jefboyardee]

Not trying to start a war, just replying because I had to abandon IE kicking and screaming a while back. Since I've settled with Firefox and Thunderbird, I've never looked back.

 

[TrainableMan]

I see it in FireFox too, it is how Microsoft codes the BING NBCNEWS webpage html. I haven't found a way to get rid of it but I'm hoping someone comes up with an add-on that will at least hide it.

 

[jefboyardee]

Interesting. I have the FF search bar set on Google and I haven't ever seen it. Maybe that's the secret the OP was looking for...

 

[clifford_cooley]

I currently use Firefox and Bing search. I don't use Bing website though. I just loaded "http://www.bing.com/" in both IE and Firefox. This little window is not loading for me, so I can't help in trying to remove it.

 

[TrainableMan]

Not exactly BING itself, more the sites MSN links to for headline information. Here is a good example: NBCNEWS.

 

[clifford_cooley]

OK now I see the box, but tell me this. How is Bing responsible, if I see that box after clicking the link you provided? There is nothing in the address to suggest a link to Bing and it wasn't Bing that presented the link to me.

I'm tempted to say that is a Social Media Widget programmed into the website, not associated with Bing at all or else it would be seen on all websites. But then why would they program the same links in top right as well as bottom left? Perhaps the bottom left is an article specific widget, where as the top right is relevant to the main site.

 

[TrainableMan]

NBCNEWS is responsible.

MSN.com includes a search engine "powered by Bing" so I have always call it "BING" when really it is "MSN". MSN is basically "BING PLUS": the search engine plus various sections including the News. So when I posted above it was from memory, just knowing I saw it sometimes when I click items on the MSN page. (which I erroneously refer to as "BING").

So when this thread continued I actually went to try and figure out where I saw that annoying bar and realized it is when I follow news links. So, in my post above, I have changed BING, which really should have said MSN, to the most accurate NBCNEWS.

So ...
You may think you thought you understood what you thought I said but what you may not realize is what I said is not necessarily what I meant.

 

[clifford_cooley]

So ...
You may think you thought you understood what you thought I said but what you may not realize is what I said is not necessarily what I meant.

LOL - Thanks for clarifying.

So! If it is part of the site programing, there may not be much way to avoid it.

 

[pmillen]

I really didn't follow the preceding exchange because I read it very fast (almost a scan) and sometimes I just don't follow discussions that are somewhat computer-technical. But I gather that it's part of msn.com.

That may be—my security is by Norton 360 (weekly full system scan) and weekly scans with Advanced System Optimizer which includes spyware and malware scans.

MSN.com is my homepage. I think it only appears when I click on one of their links to a news story. It goes away when I click on the little house icon at upper right to return to my home page.

I reviewed my IE add-ons and disabled the suspicious ones. It didn't seem to have any effect on anything. I also reviewed my start-up programs (using WinPatrol Plus and obtained detail on the non-obvious ones) and it doesn't appear to be a start-up program.

So—are we concluding that it's MSN-generated and I have to live with it if I want to continue using msn.com?

 

[TrainableMan]

pmillen, It isn't MSN. MSN just happens to link all their news to NBCNEWS. The problem is with NBCNEWS. That is how their webpages are currently coded.

I can edit the elements and remove them from a page but they just come back if I refresh. It would take some sort of browser add-on that specifically targets those CSS elements and removes them before the page is displayed. I do believe such a thing could be written but I doubt it will be.

So if you use NBCNEWS you will probably have to live with it.

EDIT: After I posted I did find reference to an add-on called CSS Adblock which might do the trick but it would require you use FireFox, Chrome, or Opera as your browser. I do use Firefox but currently I cannot connect to the website which hosts CSS Adblock so I can't even try it myself.

 

[clifford_cooley]

I just noticed basically the same widget on TechSpot. Though it looks different the links are the same.

http://www.techspot.com/news/56930-...n-hp-computers-android-and-windows-phone.html

Widgets I'm sure can only be added or removed through site Admin Panel. That is unless you can find an add-on that will physically remove web elements that contain widgets. I'm not sure that would be a good idea as some site functionality may be contained within widgets.

 

[pmillen]

Thanks for your diagnosis. Yes, it appears to happen only when NBC content is selected. So it's likely that NBC generates it and we can't stop it. This was reinforced when I had the same results on one of my other computers and my Surface Pro2 (I usually don't visit msn.com when using them).

So—Thinking that I need to find another news site for my homepage, I searched and found this list with a similar add-on.

So they're ubiquitous. I don't think I'm neurotic (but I don't suppose it's possible to self-diagnose), nevertheless I they annoy me and I want to avoid them.

Thanks, all, for your help on this issue. I'm not going to tag it as resolved but I don't see that there's a solution, especially since the majority of users seem to be tolerant.