Well, it seems that in the latest attempt for google to take over the world, one browser at a time, their toolbar is calling such files as gtbe12.tmp.exe. Can you make it seem more spyware than this google? I mean, come on!
Well, I logged into my work computer this morning and it seems that everything was crawling. Since I do not login to this computer very often (2 times a week) this behavior is not very surprising. During this time, I check to see what processes are running and where the memory leaks are.
Today, it was outlook that was the memory leak, but due to Outlook and its need to consume more ram than the computerh as, I noticed this funny process – gtbe12.tmp.exe. I thought for sure that I picked myself up a bug until I did a bit of research and it seems that it is hooked into google’s toolbar.
Sure enough, I had used IE7 the last time I had the computer open and google toolbar was installed on it. As part of my initial process to get my computer working again, I did close down IE7. While researching the issue, the process ended shortly after IE closed. This corresponds with the internet’s account that the process is associated with IE + google toolbar.
The end result? While I vote for spyware (and depending on how you view Google’s actions with their toolbar, you can more legitimately say that it is spyware) this process is ok to leave alone. I would definitely keep my eye on it, but it appears to be temp executable files pertaining to updating the toolbar’s files. After letting it run (once my computer stabilized from outlook), it did stop appearing…
