Reply #3: Remedy easily available, free: [View All]

[KTM]

CWShredder is a program that has been developed and maintained by a student from the Netherlands for years - you can read about it's history (and get an idea how evil CoolWebSearch is) HERE.

CoolWebSearch is notorious for being impossible to detect and remove - most anti-spyware programs will miss it. I've fixed hundreds of PCs infected with spyware and adware, and used most of the trusted tools - Spybot, AdAware, SpySweeper, etc. CoolWebSearch is known for their frequent updates and specific design to evade these tools. Merijn's CWShredder ONLY targets CoolWebSearch variants.

Their crap got worse and worse, and with school to deal with, Merijn couldn't keep up. The program was taken over by InterMute, who have since been absorbed by TrendMicro. The program, however, is still free, still (relatively) frequently updated, and still the most effective tool to cleanse your system of this crap.

(Yes, Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird are the way to go.. but that doesn't help someone who is already infected. For them... cleanse your PC - run this, run AdAware or one of the trusted tools above, make sure you AntiVirus is up-to-date and do a full system scan.. or backup files and reload... and then switch to Firefox/Thunderbird immediately.)