CoolWebSearch [spyware]

Hey people,

I kinda have a problem concerning a very persistent spyware thing. It's called CoolWebSearch.

The problems I'm having are twofold: my IE startpage always gets reset to a shady search site, and secondly, even worse, when I visit my hotmail inbox or some other sites my browser redirects to said search site. This way, I cannot check my e-mail, or visit various other sites.

When I ran Ad-Aware, it recognized several registry values and keys that keep re-appearing after I delete them. So, I turned to Google and found out that this CoolWebSearch thing was a known problem. Unfortunately, even a special program designed to remove all known CoolWebSearch-ware didn't work.

Could you guys help me out, please?

I've learned my lesson, there's no such thing as free ****...

Have you tried CWShredder? That works...unless it's the one that didn't work on you.

Try Hijackthis or Spybot: Search and Destroy. They work, too.

Yes, CWShredder was the one I tried. I'll give those other two a try, now...

There's a lot of shit to try right out of Google... even Symantec has an article about it on its knowledge center. A manual removal, albeit maybe kind of complicated, might help in this case... if you get the proper instructions.

1) CTRL+ALT+DELETE.

2) Do a Google search on any processes running which you don't recognize. (Not applications, the page with all the .exe's.)

3) Make notes on where each file is located, and get rid of your cookies/internet files or run Ad-Aware before you restart your computer.

4) If the Google search itself didn't tell you a good way to get rid of the .exe, then reboot up on Command Prompt Safe Mode and delete each one manually. Windows has a problem with you deleting files which are in use, so Safe Mode is necessary.

I wish my spyware problem was in the form of a stupid exe. I got this messed up window that always pops up and links all this other shit. I close it and then everythign works fine and it goes away till I use the internet again but it's getting pretty fucking annoying. Adware won't rip it outta there. I'm frusamastrated.

POTGIESSER said:

I wish my spyware problem was in the form of a stupid exe. I got this messed up window that always pops up and links all this other shit. I close it and then everythign works fine and it goes away till I use the internet again but it's getting pretty fucking annoying. Adware won't rip it outta there. I'm frusamastrated.

Try SpyBot S&D or something else, figure out which process it is and look it up at google. Oh yeah and try web-updating Ad-Aware before you scan.

Heres a Virus Scanner pack i made available for download.

Virus Scanner Pack 10mb

,

What you need is cwshedder.
click below and follow instructions.
http://www.softpedia.com/public/scripts/downloadhero/10-17-150/
You'll be rid of it in a few seconds.

[edit]Damn it!; I just noticed you already tried it. I should've read the thread more carefully >:-([/edit]

The problem with CoolWebSearch is that it comes in many different versions. A lot of them are very hard to get rid of, even with programs such as CWShredder. I use Firefox now, no problems whatsoever.

use a different browser. you would be amazed on how much that can affect spyware. IE may be good, but it is the worlds biggest target. if you must use IE make sure you stay ontop of security updates.

i would not recommend digging in the registry and doing manual removale. this could kill networking on a system if you dont do it correctly.

download spybot and adware, or a number of other programs that remove spyware. hijack this is another great one to use.

i use mozilla, i put it on my brother's and dad's systems. these are people who google search with "free porn" and i have had no major problems, even with their abuse. also use another email program and disable html in email. another inlet of this garbage. besides email is a message, no need for any of that fancy shit in your email.

watch what programs you use. new versions of AIM, many P2P programs, a number of free ware programs, burn4free, free desktop pictures, smily BS and all that other desktop junk often have spyware packaged with them.

No, IE is not good. IE is an obsolete POS browser. Sucky support for different scripting languages and no tabbed browsing. Include a ton of security holes with that, and you get a shit product.

Mozilla is proibably the best and most advanced browser out there right now.



Hell, even Microsoft themselves have recommended Mozilla.

yea alot of people still prefer IE, i dont see why.

however IE is fantastic compared to AOL browser. is AOL still based on IE 4.0?

try http://www.majorgeeks.com it has a spyware section with lots of utilities to zap specific problems.

Well, I've made a little progress...

In the registry of the Internet Explorer there were two keys that keep changing the startpage value of IE; these were called HPDep and SPDep. I have no idea how they work, but anyway, these keys had shady search sites as values, so I changed them to Google. EDIT: Apparently, Ad-Aware doesn't recognize these keys as malware.

Now, my startpage always gets changed to Google, which is fine by me :P

When I get redirected from Hotmail-related sites, it also goes Google instead of the spyware sites. It's still annoying that it gets redirected, but now their sites aren't getting anymore hits from me. I've been browsing around in the registry, but couldn't find anything that might re-install the CoolWebSearch keys, or any keys that would redirect my browser. I suspect the CWS keys do this, but I don't know for sure.

What I do know, is that whatever I do, whatever program I try, the CWS keys always get re-installed after I delete them. Believe me, I've tried everything you guys told me, and it STILL doesn't work...

The only thing left, I guess, is to try one of the other browsers you recommended me... Internet Explorer be damned.

Just out of curiosity, does there happen to be any unusual .reg files in your main hard drive's root directory?

No, I don't have any files in the root directory.