# How safe is Smiley Central?



## telecom69 (Oct 12, 2001)

Several younger members of my family have asked me if Smiley Central is safe to install,I have no experience of it myself but am aware it has a certain reputation for spyware and adware,which Smiley Central itself denies , (but then they would wouldnt they) would like any opinions from members of any bad experiences or not from installing this ....


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## wilson44512 (Mar 25, 2006)

if your using fire fox. it has a good extension. called smiley extra 4.1. it has all kinds of smile's plus other little animations. an there easy to add to forums an things

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/375/

here are just a few


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Smiley Central has very nice smilies but I woud not trust installing there software. 

My hosts file also blocks them and for a good reason too.


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## jvik2 (Sep 3, 2006)

I Wouldn't, There Is Lots Of Adware And Spyware.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

The smiley extra 4.1 extension really just gets the smilies from linking to other smilie sites so your really not installing them but hotlinking them. Each one wilson44512 post is not from the same site and the one is from Smiley Central but it is just a hotlink so is safe.


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## surfsafe (Oct 9, 2007)

Smiley Central is distributed by Fun Web Products, a division of Interactive Corp (IAC), a company which owns many other safe and reliable websites like Ask.com, Citysearch and Ticketmaster.

The way this product make money is by installing a MyWay search toolbar on your browser in addition to the fun stuff. This is not spyware or adware. It is simply a useful tool which is bundled in so that the product can remain free. When people use the search toolbar and click on sponsored links, IAC makes money. This is the same way Google and Yahoo make money on their search products too.


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## alwrmc (Jan 13, 2004)

My uncle received an email from my brother-in-law who uses Smiley Central. He clicked on a smiley and lost his ability to change the cursor shape/size. There were a couple of other graphics problem. I worked with his system for an hour or so and then he explaned when the problem first started. I deleted and cleaned the registry and his system regained its normal capabilities. The only thing I changed was the removal of that stuff. Draw your own conclusions.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

surfsafe said:


> Smiley Central is distributed by Fun Web Products, a division of Interactive Corp (IAC), a company which owns many other safe and reliable websites like Ask.com, Citysearch and Ticketmaster.
> 
> The way this product make money is by installing a MyWay search toolbar on your browser in addition to the fun stuff. This is not spyware or adware. It is simply a useful tool which is bundled in so that the product can remain free. When people use the search toolbar and click on sponsored links, IAC makes money. This is the same way Google and Yahoo make money on their search products too.


MyWay search toolbar is flagged as spyware by every security product I'm aware of. Seems pretty odd they'd all consider it spyware. Of course, I wouldn't expect someone that works for the site to admit that anyway...


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