CWShredder 2.13

Author	InterMute, Inc
Category	Spyware & Adware
File Size	454 KB
License	Freeware
Added	16 Feb 2005

Review for CWShredder 2.13 pick

Originally developed and updated by a graduate student in the Netherlands, CWShredderв„ў is now maintained by InterMute.

A small utility for removing CoolWebSearch (aka CoolWwwSearch, YouFindAll, White-Pages.ws and a dozen other names).

The CoolWebSearch Chronicles detail the variants of the browser hijacker known as CoolWebSearch (CWS). CoolWebSearch is known to be one of the most difficult spyware infections to detect and remove.

CoolWebSearch has evolved as a series of вЂvariantsвЂ™, each somewhat different than its predecessors, with the later variants significantly more complex to detect and remove.

It is believed that the reason why new variants of CoolWebSearch are regularly released is to avoid or defeat attempts to remove it from a computer which it has infected.

CWS is a robust infection that exhibits robust intelligence, technical prowess and a determination to survive removal attempts. CWS wants to live.

The difficulty of removing CWS from a user's system is significant. In the early variants, CWS was slightly tricky to remove, but it could be done, carefully, by a knowledgeable Windows user.

However, CWS has stepped up the battle and recent variants are virtually impossible to remove manually. Some CWS variants even use methods of hiding and running themselves that had never been used before in any other spyware strains.

The chronological order in which the CWS variants appeared is detailed here, along with the approximate dates when they appeared online.

However, since the programmers of CWS have released over two dozen versions of their hijacker in such a short time, and are crunching out new ones practically every week, this document might be out of date at times.

InterMuteвЂ™s CWShredder tool to remove CoolWebSearch is updated regularly when new variants emerge.

This tool will find and destroy all traces of the CoolWebSearch (CWS) hijacker on your system. This includes:

В· Redirections to CoolWebSearch related pages
В· Redirections when mistyping URLs
В· Redirections when visiting Google
В· Enormous IE slowdowns when typing
В· IE start page/search page changing on reboot
В· Sites in the IE Trusted Zone you didn't add
В· Popups in Google and Yahoo when searching
В· Errors at startup mentioning WIN.INI or IEDLL.EXE
В· Unable to change or see certain items in IE Options
В· Unable to access IE Options at all

NOTE:
There is a variant of the Coolwebsearch trojan spreading that closes several anti-spyware apps when you try to open them. If this is happening to you, download PepiMK's CoolWWWSearch.SmartKiller removal tool first and run it.

After it does its job, CWShredder and HijackThis will run properly (as well Spybot S&D, Ad-aware and several anti-spyware forums).

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