How do I delete the toolbars I don't want from my web browser?

Q  I have collected numerous unneeded and unwanted toolbars across the top of my internet screen. I would like to be able to delete some of them but although they seem very good at telling me how useful they are, they are hopeless at telling me how to get rid of them.

I’ve found that if I press the F11 key this clears them temporarily but I then lose the ability to see the status bar at the bottom of the screen. Can you help?
Alan Rothwell

A  Unwanted toolbars like these are adept at working their way into web browsers, apparently uninvited. In fact, in many cases they arrive as part of other software that you have voluntarily installed.

A program’s installation wizard may have included a discreet tick box that signalled your agreement to install this, that or the other browser toolbar. By failing to click to remove the tick (understandable, as you may not even have noticed it), the program goes ahead and adds a toolbar.

Though some can be helpful – such as the Google Toolbar – others are just plain annoying and serve mainly to benefit the developer (through data collection, advertising or both). Pressing F11 switches the browser into fullscreen mode: this effectively hides the toolbars (and everything else, as you’ve discovered), but doesn’t disable or remove them.

Fortunately, in most cases disabling and/or removing browser toolbars is straightforward. You didn’t tell us anything about your computer, so we don’t know which web browser or operating system you’re using. However, we’ll guess that it will be a Windows PC and that you’re using Internet Explorer.

Assuming this is the case, then to disable (and thus hide) a toolbar, open the Tools menu (or click the Tools button), point to Toolbars and click to remove the tick from the offender. Repeat for each toolbar you’d like to hide.

Versions of Internet Explorer 6 onwards (so any edition released in the past decade) can also run add-ons, some of which may also affect the browser in unwanted or otherwise annoying ways.

To view and manage installed add-ons, click the Tools menu and choose Manage Add-ons (in versions earlier than Internet Explorer 8 you will also need to click Enable or Disable Add-ons from the submenu).

The precise appearance of and options available in the Manage Add-ons window that appears varies between browser versions, but usually you can click on an entry for more information and click the Disable (or Enable) button as appropriate.

Note, though, that while these methods will disable (and therefore hide) specific toolbars and add-ons, they’re not actually deleted from your PC. To do that, in Vista and Windows 7, click Start followed by Control Panel and click Programs followed by Programs and Features.

In XP, click Add or Remove Programs. Now scroll through the program list to find the offending entry, click to highlight it and then click the Uninstall (Change/Remove in XP) button and follow the prompts.

Finally, we should say that some toolbars are resistant to removal attempts. Indeed, you may go through all of the above steps only to find that a toolbar reappears the next time the browser is launched.

Obviously, we can’t give specific instructions here because we have no idea which toolbars are the cause of your frustrations. However, if you do confront problems when tackling an unwanted toolbar then use a search site such as Google to look for guidance. Have a look at our Back-to-Basics guide to web searching.