The free toolbars that software vendors think they need to include with their applications are being presented in more sophisticated, devious styles.  Toolbar installations also seem to want to change the default search provider in Internet Explorer.

Vuze hides the toolbar remote in a “I accept the License terms” line.  It isn’t clear from the text whether the license that would be accepted relates to the Vuze software itself or to the “Vuze toolbar remote.”  Not accepting the license checked here does not prevent Vuze itself from being installed or operating.  Therefore the license that would be accepted on this screen is actually for the toolbar.  It is easy to see from this how a naive or unsophisticated user would think that the checkbox really applied to the Vuze software as a whole and that if they wanted to be able to use Vuze that the Vuze toolbar remote would also have to be accepted.

Some, like Vuze, are offering to change the homepage as well.  The offers to change the homepage are usually unchecked indicating that the homepage won’t change unless the user wants.  That’s nice since most user just click through these dialogs during an installation or an upgrade without even realizing what is happening.

It’s too bad that these dialogs can’t have all of the checkboxes to install toolbars and change search providers unchecked like the change to the homepage in Vuze.