Ask.com FAQs

Ask.com's ExpertRank algorithm provides relevant answers by identifying the most authoritative sites on the Web. With Ask search technology, it's not just about who's biggest: it's about who's best.

Our ExpertRank algorithm goes beyond mere link popularity (which ranks pages based on the sheer volume of links pointing to a particular page) to determine popularity among pages considered to be experts on the topic of your search. This is known as subject-specific popularity. Identifying topics (also known as "clusters"), the experts on those topics, and the popularity of millions of pages amongst those experts -- at the exact moment your search query is conducted -- requires many additional calculations that other search engines do not perform.

The result is world-class relevance that often offers a unique editorial flavor compared to standard search engines.

Ask.com provides a search service, presenting the most relevant and interesting media it finds. However, Ask.com does not always have specific licensing agreements to provide fully rendered, large images in original formats.If you are interested in an image and would like a better or large quality image, please contact the source owner (always noted below or next to an image). You can also click through an image to the source to find the specific article/page where that image was originally posted.

To do this, click on the Tools menu from the button with either three horizontal lines or three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the the Google Chrome browser, and then click on "Settings" from the drop down menu.

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the Settings tab, will indicate your current setting for your homepage (titled “On Startup”) and your default search provider (titled “Search engine”). Use the corresponding drop-down menu at "Search engine" to change your default search provider, and choose the first option under "On Startup" to see Google Chrome's default new tab.

If Ask is currently set as your homepage or default search provider, you must disable the Ask extension in order to change the setting. Chrome will display an option to disable the extension as shown below. You can click on the "Disable Extension" button and then set your desired homepage or search provider. In some cases, you may have separate Ask extensions installed for your homepage and default search provider settings, andyou may need to disable them separately.

If you want to remove the Ask New Tab page, please follow these instructions on how to remove the extension from Chrome.

Changing your browser's default homepage is as easy as adjusting settings in your browser options. For instructions on changing your homepage, please refer to the articles below.

Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10

Ask.com is my default Firefox home page or search engine in Windows. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default Google Chrome home page or search engine in Windows. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default Internet Explorer home page or search engine in Windows. How do I change it?

Macintosh OS X

How do I change my default homepage and search provider in Firefox for Mac OS X?

How do I change my default homepage and search provider in Google Chrome for Mac OS X?

How do I change my default homepage in Safari for Mac OS X?

The EndUser License Agreement for our toolbar is availablein English, Deutsch, Franais, Espaol, Italiano, , Nederlands, Portugus and .

We cannot arbitrarily remove content from our answer index.

If you have a specific situation you'd like to discuss, please send us all the details and we'll look into it with you.

Ask has partnered with Yelp to bring you the best crowdsourced business listings and reviews available on the web! When your local business is reviewed on Yelp, it will potentially be included in Ask answer results as well.

Our answer searches no longer function as a traditional search engine--we are now focused on providing the best answers to your questions, and to do so, we rely on content from various partners. These partners provide us with content from their own search engines, and we bring those answers to our users. Therefore, we cannot ensure inclusion of your site.

Of course! We work with a number of add-ons to power search functionality (you can see a list below). If you've downloaded and installed one of these and want to remove it (in order to change your homepage), follow the below steps. Please note, once you've removed the application, you'll need to reset your default homepage to whatever you'd like it to be.

To remove the add-on fromInternet Explorer,first close all open Internet Explorerwindows. Then go to Control Panels and go into Add/Remove Programs. Scroll through the list until you see the name of the Mindspark toolbar you installed; right-click on the add-on and choose "Remove." If prompted, restart your computer.

To remove the Mindspark toolbar fromFirefox,go to the Firefox Tools menu and select Add-ons.Then click on Extensions,and look for the name of the Mindspark product you installed, and then click the "Uninstall" button to the right of the product name. It may be necessary to restart Firefox afterward in order to complete the removal.

To remove the Mindspark toolbar fromGoogle Chrome,go to Chrome's Tools menu and select More Tools. Then select "Extensions" from the sub-menu that appears. On the new tab showing your extensions, find the name of the Mindspark toolbar, and click the trash can icon to the right of the product name.

After completing the above, you may still need to change your browser's default homepage. These articles in our Help Center will show you how, depending on which browser you have:

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Google Chrome. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Firefox. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Internet Explorer. How do I change it?

Please note, the Ask removal utility featured in a number of our articles only applies to Ask's standalone toolbar. It will not remove other toolbars (such as Mindspark's) which just use Ask search results.

Ask powers search results in the following Mindspark toolbar products:

Coupon Alert

CursorMania

IWON

IWON International

MyFunCards

MyScrapNook

MyWebface

PopularScreensavers

Retrogamer

SmileyCentral

Television Fanatic

Webfetti

Zwinky

Allin1Convert

Astrology

Audio to Audio

Better Career Search

Bring Me Apps

Bring Me Sports

Bring Me Sports Rugby

Bring Me Sports Tennis

CelebSauce

Conservative Talk Now

Coupon Xplorer

Crazy for Crafts

Crazy for Cricket

Daily Bible Guide

Daily Dollar Guide

Daily Fitness Center

Daily Jewish Guide

Daily Wellness Guide

Dictionary Boss

Easy Home Decorating

Election Tracker

Fantasy Football Boss

File Share Fanatic

Film Fanatic

From Doc To PDF

Gardening Enthusiast

GasGlance

Headline Alley

Homework Simplified

How to Simplified

iHeartAudioBooks

Inbox Ace

Know the Bible

Maps Galaxy

MarineAquarium Lite

MetroWhiz

MMA in Motion

Mortgage Hawk

My Car Companion

My Daily Runway

My Image Converter

Package Tracer

PetsHarmony

Play Pop Trivia

Product Recall Alert

Quotation Cafe

Radio Rage

Reading Fanatic

Recipe Hub

Recipe Kart

Reference Boss

Round Up Radio

SafePCRepair

Sample Sale Dash

Soccer Inferno

Suddenly Music

Times of India

Total Recipe Search

Translation Buddy

Utility Chest

VacationXplorer

Video Download Converter

Video Scavenger

Weather Blink

Your Local Lotto

Your Video Chat

If Ask has become your default homepage or default search provider in Chrome and you'd like to change those things, go to the Chrome menu and click on Preferences.

From here, you can change the appropriate settings titled “On Startup” (for homepage) and “Search engine” (for default search provider).

If Ask is your new tab page and you wish to remove it, refer to this article on how to uninstall the Ask extension.

Uninstall

To uninstall the Ask Search App from Safari:

Choose Preferencesfrom the Safari menu and then click on the Extensions tab.

Click the "Uninstall" button next to the extension name (such as "searchAppAsk").

To disable the extension:

Choose Preferencesfrom the Safari menu and then click on the Extensionstab.

Uncheck the box next to “Enable searchAskApp” under the extension.

For more information, please visit the Ask.com Help Center.

When you were offered and accepted the opportunity to install the Ask Toolbar, another option available to you was to also set Ask.com as your browser default homepage or default new tab. If you wish to no longer have Ask.com set as your homepage or default new tab, it can be changed within your browser settings. For instructions on changing your browser settings, please refer to the articles below.

Windows XP/Vista/7/8

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Firefox. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Google Chrome. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Internet Explorer. How do I change it?

Macintosh OS X

How do I change my default homepage and default search provider in Firefox for Mac OS X?

How do I change my default homepage and default search provider in Google Chrome for Mac OS X?

How do I change my default homepage in Safari for Mac OS X?

Internet Explorer allows you to change your browser homepage and search engine at any time.

To change your homepage, look at the upper right corner of your Internet Explorer browser window, select the gear icon (as shown below), and then "Internet Options" from the drop down menu.If you cannot find the gear icon, find the row of menus across the top of your computer screen such as File, Edit, View, etc. Click on the menu that saysTools, and from that Tools menu, click onInternet Options. Then proceed to the next step.

Find the section marked "Home page." When you first open Internet Options, the entire home page address should be highlighted in light blue; type the backspace key on your keyboard to delete it. Alternately, use your mouse to select the entire address you see beginning with "and delete it with the backspace key. Then, type your desired home page in that space--for example, if you'd like Facebook as your homepage, type in www.facebook.com. Once you have typed in your preferred homepage, click "Apply" and then click "OK."

That's it for your default homepage settings! After making the change to your default homepage, you'll need to open a new Internet Explorer window to see the change. Changing your homepage setting doesn't retroactively affect pages you already had open prior to making the change.

If your homepage doesn't change after doing the above, make sure you typed a valid page address in place of the Ask address. (e.g. "Facebook" is not a valid page address, but www.facebook.com is valid).

To change your default New Tab page in Internet Explorer, look for the Tabs section in the same Options menu, and click on the Tabs button.

Next, look at the setting titled “When a new tab is opened, open:” and change the value to whatever you desire.

In order to make changes to your default search engine, start with the same steps mentioned above to open theInternet Options. Click on the “Programs” tab and then on “Manage Add-ons”. This will open another window in which you will see “Search Providers” in the left rail menu. After clicking on “Search Providers”, the right rail will be populated with available search engines. Click on your preferred search engine from the list, and then click on the “Set as Default” button on the bottom-right corner of the window. This will set your new default search engine.

This will open another window in which you will see “SearchEngines” in the left rail menu. After clicking on “Search Engines”, the large listwill be populated with available search engines. Click on your preferred search engine from the list, and then click on the “Setas Default” button on the bottom-right corner of the window. This willset your new default search engine.

We work with a small number of trusted partners who handle our sponsored listing and display ad operations, and so we do not directly offer advertising opportunities. Outsourcing these functions allows us to focus fully on what we do best - create an excellent experience for our users when they search for answers online.

If you're interested in sponsored listings on Ask.com, we partner with Google to use its Adwords network of sponsored listings. Getting signed up with an Adwords account can get your ads on Ask.com as well.

The Ask.com search tool is easy to add to your website. Simply highlight the code in the box below, copy it (right-click), then paste it into the HTML on your own site.

<!-- Search Ask.com -->

<form method="get" action="http://ask.com/web">

<table cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr>

<td><a href="http://www.ask.com/">

<img src="http://sp.ask.com/sh/i/logos/reply8.gif"

border="0" alt="Ask.com" align="absmiddle"></a></td>

<td><input id="q" name="q" type="text" size="25" maxlength="255" value="" /></td>

<td><input type="submit" value="Search" /></td>

</tr></table>

<input type="hidden" id="qsrc" name="qsrc" value="2300" />

</form>

<!-- Search Ask.com -->

Once you are done pasting this code into the desired location on your site, you are finished. It's that easy!

To uninstall the Ask Search App, click on Firefox's Tools menu and choose Add-ons.

From your Add-ons page, find the Ask search extension in the list of installed extensions, and click "Remove" at the right edge of the extension listing. You may need to restart your browser in order to complete the removal.

After that, you may also wish to change your default homepage in Firefox. To do so, refer to this article.

Nothing pleases us more than having our valued users embark on a fruitful search. The following tips can help you to achieve better, more thorough results.

Search With Keywords or Questions

Ask search technology responds to questions, phrases, or single word searches, giving you more options and making it easier for you to search the way you want.

For example, all of the following search examples should successfully lead you to the desired information:

Where can I find cheap airfare to New York?

Cheap airfare to New York

Cheap airfare

Spelling Counts

While capitalization doesn't matter, correct spelling will always lead you to better quality results. If you do search on a misspelled term, our spell check feature should assist you. When a potential misspelling is encountered, we'll automatically suggest a correct spelling. If this suggestion is selected, we will perform your corrected search again, thus ensuring the best and most accurate search results possible.

Batle of the Netdork Stars will be corrected to Battle of the Network Stars

Beetles songs will be corrected to Beatles songs

Use Related Search

Ask.com's natural language technology allows us to understand the context of your search so that we can provide related topics or suggestions for you to use to enhance your search experience. You can find these suggestions in the upper right side of the web results and occasionally within our Smart Answer results.

Word Order Matters

Our search technology recognizes the order of words in a search. Search with the same natural word order that you would use in an everyday conversation with a friend or simply type in the keywords that you think will lead to your desired search results.

Poor word order choice for search: Gifts Christmas dad for ideas

Good word order choice for search: Christmas gift ideas for dad

Category Inclusion

Sometimes the same proper noun applies to very different things. Including a category for your search can improve results. If you're searching for information on the West Wing, the television show, search two will work better than search one.

Mixed results: Information on the West Wing

Better results: Information on the West Wing, the television show.

The More Specific The Better

Ask can pinpoint information if you make specific search requests. We are always working diligently to advance our technologies and extend our reach into the Web; however, we may not be able to recover every specific topic you may search just yet. So, if your specific request doesn't work the first time, simply try a more general request.

Try Searching With Synonyms To Improve Results

If provides only limited results for your search, try substituting your original search with new terms that mean the same thing.

Mixed results: Cement Ponds

Better results: Swimming Pools

One Search Or Question At A Time

As with any search engine, our technology works best when you pose only one search question or phrase at a time. If you're looking for information on, say, spas in California and hotels in New York, you should perform two separate searches in order to receive the best results:

Search One: Do you have information on spas in Napa Valley, California?

Search Two: What are the best hotels in New York City?

Not: I need info on hotels in New York and spas in California.

Spaces Between Words

Be sure to place a space between words so can see exactly what you're searching for. If you're not sure about spacing, perform separate searches for each of your options.

Transit Strike works better than Transitstrike

Henry Kissinger works better than Henrykissinger

First, look in the upper right corner of your Firefox window, and find the button icon that looks like three horizontal lines. Click on the three horizontal lines, and from the menu that drops down, click the Options icon.

Once in Firefox Options, click on the "General" tab and locate the area where Ask.com is entered as the Home Page. Using your mouse, select the Ask.com page address, delete it, and type the address of whatever page you'd like to be your default, as shown below (for example, if you'd like Facebook to be your homepage, type in www.facebook.com ).

That's it for your default homepage settings! After making the change to your default homepage, you'll need to open a new Firefox window to see the change. Changing your homepage setting doesn't retroactively affect pages you already had open prior to making the change.

If you want to remove the Ask New Tab page, please follow these instructions on how to remove the add-on from Firefox.

Next, if you want to change the default search engine for Firefox, you can access the option by clicking on the magnifying glass icon, found in the search box on the top-right corner of the browser. When you hover the cursor on top of the icon, you will see a triangle icon appear. Click on it to see the list of available search engines, which can be used for your next search. If you want to make a specific search engine the default, click on the last item: “Change Search Settings”. This will open Firefox Options to the appropriate section. Under “Default Search Engine," pick the search engine of your choice from the drop-down menu. Then close all Firefox windows and reopen Firefox to see the changes in effect.

FF1.png

It couldn't be simpler: just go to Ask.com, type in the name or type of the business, event, or movie you want, and the location (city, zip, address, intersections, or even neighborhood) where you want to find it. You'll receive a list of likely results powered by Yelp.

Click on any of the results and you'll be taken to a map of that result, along with a series of other options to make your local search even better!

Ask.com's Local Business Listings are provided by Yelp, so Ask is unable to make any changes or corrections.

To uninstall it, go to the Safari menu, and select Preferences:

On the Preferences window, click Extensions at the top. Then locate searchAskApp in the list, and click "Uninstall.

That's all there is to it! If you need to make changes to your default homepage in Safari, refer to this article.

For Mac OS X users, the Ask search app is available to use in Safari, Chrome and Firefox. It installs as an extension directly into each browser; to uninstall the search extension, navigate to your browser extension's settings interface to make those changes.

For more specific help, please see our articles specifically for Safari, Chrome and Firefox. These articles also include links to information explaining how to change your default homepage and search engine settings in each browser, should that be necessary.

To change your default homepage in Firefox for Mac OS X, go to the Firefox menu and click on Preferences.

On the General tab in Preferences, delete the currently entered homepage, and replace it with the full address of the homepage of your choice.

If you want to remove the Ask New Tab page, please follow these instructions on how to remove the add-on from Firefox.

Next, if you want to change the default search engine for Firefox, you can access the option by clicking on the magnifying glass icon, found in the search box on the top-right corner of the browser. When you hover the cursor on top of the icon, you will see a triangle icon appear. Click on it to see the list of available search engines, which can be used for your next search. If you want to make a specific search engine the default, click on the last item: “Change Search Settings”. This will open Firefox Options to the appropriate section. Under “Default Search Engine, pick the search engine of your choice from the drop-down menu.

To make changes to your default homepage or default search engine in Safari, go to the Safari menu in the upper left corner and select Preferences. Then, from the General tab in Preferences, make the desired changes to the Homepage field. Delete the Ask page address and replace it with the full address of the page you'd prefer.

To uninstall it, go to the Chrome Extensions by opening a new tab in chrome and navigating to chrome://extensions

Then locate Search App by Ask, and click "remove" below it.

If Ask is still your default homepage or default search results provider in Chrome and you'd like to change those settings, refer to this article.

A number of other browser add-on products (made by other companies) bundle and offer Ask search tools during installation of their products. This includes the Ask default homepage or new tab page, and if not declined at the time of installation, that setting will be changed in your browser.

Normally, this is easily fixed by changing your default homepage or new tab setting back to whatever you'd like it to be. These articles explain how:

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Google Chrome. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Firefox. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Internet Explorer. How do I change it?

If the toolbar is not present on your computer, it's still possible that Ask is set as your browser's default search engine or default browser homepage. These are easy settings to change within your browser's settings. Refer to the articles below for your specific browser.

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Firefox. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Google Chrome. How do I change it?

Ask.com is my default home page or search engine in Internet Explorer. How do I change it?

This can be done by uninstalling the app from the Add/Remove Programs control panel (in Windows XP and Vista) or from the Programs & Features control panel (Windows 7, 8 and 10). The search app will be called either "Ask Toolbar" or "Search App by Ask." If you cannot find an entry in the Add/Remove Programs control panel, then you can try browser-specific instructions below.

Internet Explorer:

You can also find a list of installed add-ons by clicking on “Manage Add-ons” in Internet Explorer's Tools menu:

To change your default homepage or search provider in Internet Explorer, please refer to this article.

Google Chrome:

Chrome users can remove Ask toolbars and search apps quickly by going to Chrome's Tools menu, hovering over "More Tools," and choosing "Extensions" from the sub-menu.

Remove the Ask extension(s). by clicking the trash can icon next to the corresponding extension. In some cases, you may have multiple extensions installed so you may need to remove them separately.

After restarting, you may still see Ask as your default search engine or default home page. If so, please refer to this article to change those settings.

Mozilla Firefox:

Firefox users can remove Ask search apps by going to Firefox's Tools menu, selecting Add-ons, and clicking "Remove" next to the name of the Ask search app in the list of installed extensions, as shown here:

After restarting Firefox, you may still see Ask as your default search provider. If so, please refer to this article.

If the above steps don't work for some reason, users can remove the Ask toolbar or search app by downloading and running this removal utility:

http://apnmedia.ask.com/media/toolbar/utilities/ToolbarRemover.exe

After downloading the utility, please close all open browser windows. Then double-click the utility's icon to run the utility; after it completes, please restart your computer. Restarting the computer is necessary to complete the removal.

Note to Mac OS X users: This article has instructions specific to web browsers in OS X.

To remove our extension from Google Chrome, please follow the instructions provided below:

Click on the button withthree horizontal linesor thethree dots Click here found in the upper right-hand corner of your Chrome browser.

From the drop-down menu clickMore Toolsand then selectExtensions.

From the list of installed Extensions, find the entry for “Search Extension by Ask”

Click on the trash can icon to the far right. If you simply want to hide the extension but not remove it, you can un-check theEnabledbutton.

Close your browser completely and reopen it. Our extension should be removed from your Chrome browser.

If you are still having difficulty, we can help.to contact our customer support team.

To submit feedback, just click the "Feedback" link at the bottom of any page at Ask.com, or simply click here.

If you wish to report a bug with some function of Ask.com, report that via this form.

If you're looking for general help using Ask.com products and services, click here to talk to Eric.

Yes, we obey the 1994 Robots Exclusion Standard (RES), which is part of the Robot Exclusion Protocol. The Robots Exclusion Protocol is a method that allows Web site administrators to indicate to robots which parts of their site should not be visited and indexed by the robot. For more information on the RES, and the Robot Exclusion Protocol, please visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion.html.

Ask.com local business listings are powered by Yelp, which is where address and contact information is hosted. Unfortunately, we're unable to make changes to Yelp listings, so you'll need to contact Yelp directly for assistance updating a listing.

Most search results on Ask.com come from destination sites all over the internet, rather than from our own database. We show results to those other sites, but we don't control the content on those sites.

The best course of action is to determine the website that is showing the content in our search results, andcontact the originating site directlyregarding this situation and ask them to remove or update the page in question. Once their site is updated, our search results will be updated as well!

Once the information has been removed, our web crawler, which seeks out pages on the Web to index for search, will systematically pick up changes made to websites. However, we are not able to provide a specific time frame as to when a given page will be reindexed or updated.

For more serious matters, we can remove content with a court order specifically instructing search engines to not display certain specific web pages. Feel free to get in touch with us via the contact form and attach a PDF of the court order, and we'll be glad to look into it with you.

Please refer to the Help pages for the browser you are using:

Internet Explorer help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278835

Firefox help: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Cookies#Firefox

Opera help: http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/security/privacy/

Safari help: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Safari/2.0/en/ibr1074.html

All of the images are the property of the respective Web site or other credited owners. We cannot, therefore, grant permission to reprint or reuse them in any fashion or for any purpose. We suggest contacting the owners of the Web site hosting the images for information on any permissions they require to reuse their images.

Ask's Smart Answers provide key information, quickly and intuitively. Smart Answers can be found on the web results page of many searches, like for a band or famous person, and contain brief bits of information and links to other resources. You can get quick access to sports scores, movie times, weather, dictionary results, translations, conversions, health information, and more.

Intrigued? Check out these tools:

Definition of Serendipity

Weather in Oakland, California

Ella Fitzgerald

Marie Curie

IAC Search & Media stock data

Oakland A's

How many light years is one tiny mile?

Ask.com is completely committed to ensuring a good experience for its users, both in terms of the answers provided and the sponsored listings featured on the site (which are provided by Google). As a global site with more than 100 million monthly users, it can be a challenge to ensure user satisfaction with every listing.For example, a quick search of a company's name will usually turn up helpful reviews and feedback from other consumers;a visit to the company page can also yield important information, like whether the business is BBB accredited.

In the meantime, Ask takes the protection of its users seriously with a two-pronged strategy: we constantly monitor listing quality and block problematic listings as we are made aware of them. We always encourage and welcome feedback from our users and strive to continue to improve their experience, every single day.

If you have a complaint about a sponsored listing that is affecting you or your business, please contact Google's AdWords department for assistance.

After ten years of dutifully serving a growing population of internet users, Jeeves decided to step down as the face of AskJeeves.com, and retire in style. Jeeves symbolized a traditional, at-your-service butler which made people feel comfortable and at home with asking any type of question.

As the web became more of a real-time utility for people, Jeeves' job dramatically changed. Users came to Ask Jeeves for more sophisticated searches. Searches that were informational, navigational, and ultimately, transactional. Ask.com users wanted a search engine to help them search, get and do whatever they needed -- at a moment's notice.

This drove us to focus on improving our robust search engine technology and give users the Web's most useful set of tools, and gave Jeeves the opportunity to relax. Today, as Ask.com we are singularly focused on helping users find what they need through the complicated, exciting, ever-changing web. No matter what the search, Ask.com is committed to meeting the search challenge.

Your file must be at the top level of your Web site, for example, if www.mysite.com is the name of your Web site, then the robots.txt file must be at http://www.mysite.com/robots.txt.

If you have used our site or our search apps, we may have collected the information listed below, using browser cookies and mobile device IDs, and such information is tied to an anonymous cookie ID. We retain this data for a period of 18 months, after which it is no longer tied to any IP address, UDID or unique cookie ID.

Information we collect about your computer or mobile device when you use the Ask service

IP address of computer or device

Browser type (Internet Explorer 8, etc.)

Browser language setting

Other browser information (e.g. size, connection speed)

Operating system or platform (Mac, Windows XP, etc.)

Information we collect about your use of the Ask service

The URL of the last webpage you visited before visiting Ask.com

All of your activity on the Ask.com website and Ask mobile applications (your search queries, search results selected, clicks, pages viewed, etc.)

If you wish for us to remove from our databases all your searches, queries and other activities on Ask.com, we would have to first obtain the IP address of the computers and mobile devices you used to access the Ask.com site, and then make deeper research in our databases to locate any data that may be associated with your browser IP addresses or UDID.

No. The Ask Toolbar does not collect any personal information and is completely "spyware"-free and "adware"-free. Period. The Ask Toolbar was specifically designed to provide a great user experience free of spyware, adware, direct marketing, data collection or other similar activities. In order to achieve that goal:

The toolbar software DOES NOTcollect personal information of any kind, period. No email address, registration or other information is required to use the product. No zip code, no email, no member name, no password. Unlike many other products, we do not even attempt to collect data upon startup as a requirement of use.

The toolbar software DOES NOTmonitor the websites visited by the end user, collect or in any manner report any information about what sites an end users visits (or any clickstream activity), nor does it monitor or scrape information when you are on other sites.

The toolbar software DOES NOTserve or facilitate so-called "contextual advertising" or pop-up ads. Many applications are identified as spyware because they monitor end-user Internet usage and serve contextual pop-ups. The Ask Toolbar does not engage in any such practices.

In short, the Ask Toolbar provides a superior search experience on an ANONYMOUS basis and without any additional monitoring, contextual ads or other nuisances.

No, the Ask Toolbar does not monitor or report information about where you are traveling or what you do on Web sites. It is purely intended and designed to help you find answers on the internet.

For more information, refer to our privacy policy.

1. Open the Windows Registry Editor (regedit.exe).

Click on Start.

In the search box, type the following: "regedit" and then press Enter.

2. Determine if you have a 32-bit or 64-bit OS.

If you don't know how, please refer to Microsoft's help page here.

For 64-bit machine, go to step 3.

For 32-bit machine, go to step 4.

3. If you have a 64-bit machines, navigate to the following key by clicking on the directory found under 'Computer':

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\AskPartnerNetwork\<search-application>\<Version>\Info

4. If you have a 32-bit machines, navigate to the following key by clicking on the directory found under 'Computer':

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\AskPartnerNetwork\<search-application>\< Toolbar-Version>\Info

5. Locate the key named 'timeinstalled' in order to read the installation date.

What if I cannot find the date of installation?

If the key does not exist, it may be because you don't have an Ask search application installed on your machine anymore, or you are using an older version of the toolbar product. If you think you have an older version, please refer to the toolbar-specific EULA found here .

The Search Extension by Ask is a bonus offer for other products in Mindspark's portfolio (e.g., TotalRecipeSearch, TelevisionFanatic, OnlineMapFinder).

You need not be. This is standard language from Chrome applied to extensions. You can read more about these warnings here.

The Ask Toolbar does not look at any data on your computer other than the files it has installed to enable the product on your device. The toolbar software does not collect personal information of any kind, nor does it monitor or report any of your browsing activity.In short, the goal of AskToolbaris to provide a superior search experience on an anonymous basis and without any additional monitoring, contextual ads or other nuisances.

You can read more about what the toolbarwill notdo here.

The Search Extension by Ask is a browser extension that allows you to enjoy a new search experience by setting Ask.com as your default search provider.

You can install the Search Extension by Ask by clicking here.