As readers may know, I have recently been using CryptoTab. It's been one of those 'is it genuine or a scam?' type situations from the start and I still can't be certain but I now have a new reason to say if you are a cautious/mildly paranoid type then this is not something you should install at the moment.
The reason I've decided to update my opinion to 'only install if you're fairly tech-savvy' is because yesterday I started up my laptop and didn't actually want to use CryptoTab and I always like to disable the automatic start-up of applications so they don't start running until I DECIDE WHEN they should be running. The usual way to do this is to press CTRL+ALT+DELETE, go into task manager then click the 'start-up' tab. If you've never done this before, it's highly recommended to take a look at what starts-up every time you turn on your machine. Here's what mine currently looks like.
As you can see, there's not a great deal that's really essential. I tend to leave Windows security, my graphics driver utilities and my anti-virus enabled. Everything else is fine to disable, especially if they happen to be called 'program' which is about as uninformative as it gets. Disabling things usually just results in a quicker start-up time. Enabling things here results in your PC having a longer boot time every time you power on. Most things can be disabled - the graphics link is usually for the controller app on the taskbar and not the actual graphics drivers but I tend to leave it alone. Even Microsoft 'Cortana' - their creepy AI spy-doll can be turned off at boot time using this. So I have to wonder why CryptoTab installs itself in such a way that the ability to disable it's auto-run is greyed-out meaning that a good percentage of windows users will be unable to prevent it from running until clicked. This is unlikely to be accidental. I suspect this is by design and that's why CryptoTab encourages you to restart your PC right after installation.
There is a quick workaround to (hopefully) prevent CryptoTab from running at start-up. Right-click on it and choose 'open file location'. In the window that pops up, look for the browser.exe file, right-click it and rename it to 'browzer.exe'. It will ask for your admin password to do this. Next time you reboot, the program will be unable to auto-restart so you might want to right-click on Browzer.exe and create a new shortcut for it on the desktop if you intend to keep using it. This is the quick and dirty method to take back control, but it's also worth noting that CryptoTab sets up a bunch of services too which will auto-run and if there is anything nefarious going on then it's likely to be these services doing it.
While I'm currently ok with running CryptoTab, it's this cavalier attitude towards end-users that makes me wary of it. On the plus side, they've proved they pay out and their cryptomining browser is easy to set-up and get running unlike some other mining applications. The program also actually installs into the program files folder rather than some weird hidden location (of which, windows has many suitable for hiding things). On the negative side, they don't want you to ever disable CryptoTab and they run a multi-level marketing scheme to incentivise you to get everyone you know to install it and we can't be certain of their intentions. So let's see what else we can find out.
The website registration appears to be Russian in origin and registered to one Eduard Zaharov. Here's their current Whois details.
A quick look at their twitter account reveals this:
No profile pictures and the account has been suspended for violating twitters rules. Now since twitter allegedly has a reputation for being one of the preferred hangouts of internet trolls, you really have to wonder what CryptoTab did to get suspended. If their feed was anything like their Facebook group then
it's highly likely to have been a dumping feed for all manner of get-rich-quick and free-money schemes. Philosophically you can argue that if our governments looked after their people as well as their corporations (or backhand providers) then fewer people would be drawn into these things in the first place.
So where do we go from here? Well the responsible stance for me to take is to stop recommending CryptoTab until they sort themselves out. They need to change their product so it plays nicely with Windows and doesn't try to prevent itself from being turned off or removed (which is my next test). Until then I am not recommending its installation in the first place. While I can confirm it will pay out once you meet the earnings threshold, I do suspect it will prove to be more hassle than it's worth in the long run. I shall be using it on older PC's, reinstalled and void of any important data from this point onwards. I would prefer to earn my crypto slowly rather than risk my personal data getting dumped onto a dark-web repository. Again I ask, if cloud mining is profitable, why would anyone want to sell it to someone else? So if you haven't already installed it, you might want to watch this space before taking the plunge (or not).
Usual disclaimers: As above, this post is for information only. I do however think it's worth letting others know about my concerns on this one, especially with CryptoTab`s summer promotion likely to convince others to install it over the next few months. I have posted some of my findings to TrustPilot to help the community make a more informed decision, but y'know... free bitcoin. As yet I haven't seen a pro-active approach from anti-virus vendors to label it as malware. It's such a tricky call to make after actually getting the first payout.
Update on the update
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Curiously while checking to see if I can remove CryptoTab, I renamed the browser back to it's original name (from browzer.exe) and rebooted. I can now disable it in task manager. Could this get any weirder?
