isearch toolbar is killing me!!!

W

wooderson72

25+ Posts
Somehow, I've got this isearch toolbar that started appearing on my computer, and I can't get rid of it. It appears at the top of the screen underneath the address bar, and in the lower right hand corner as a popup bar. I have tried unsuccessfully to uninstall it via the control panel about 5 times. Yet, every time I turn the computer on, it's still there. Now, my computer is bogging down all the time, freezing up, etc., at least in part to some automatic searches this thing started doing. Someone, PLEASE HELP!!! Thanks.
 
Ad Aware + updates
Spybot: Search & Destroy + updates

Those should fix it.

If not, try Avast! Antivirus and HijackThis!
 
Al nailed it. Had the same thing happen to me. you will also prob. notice that your hard drive keeps churning when you are not doing anything or for a longer time than normal. That sound is your HD wearing down and bogging down. Your computer is dying a not so slow death. Back your stuff up or something but get that and other spyware off NOW.

It makes your HD go more than it should and wears it down. Hop to it man. Spyware people should be beaten down.
 
yes,

Go to Best Buy, plunk down the 30 bones for WebRoot Spy Sweeper and allow it to clean all the junk off of your computer. Spending $30 sucks, but it was VERY WORTH IT to be able to clean my HD and speed up the processing. Now, it does automatic updates once every two days and cleans out any spyware. In the first 2 sweeps, it found hundreds of spyware files -- now, over the course of two days will find at most, one.

When you've done that, switch to Mozilla Firefox and ditch that peice of **** Internet Explorer (Thanks to hornfans for recommending this).
 
First of all, thanks to those that offered their help & suggestions. I downloaded all of the suggested programs (except antivirus) and ran them. They did kill the isearch toolbar and got rid of a ton of other junk. One problem, remains, however, and it is the desktop search mini-toolbar that appears in the lower right hand corner of the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. My IT guy at work suggests editing the registry file since every time I reboot it's still there. I'm going to try that and see what happens.

Thanks again for the help and I'm with Loopy on beating down (to within an inch of their life) the people that put this spyware out there. I had no idea how slow my computer had gotten until I cleaned that crap out of there.
 
Editing the registry can be tricky -- I'd be very careful if I were you. A better way is to get Hijackthis! as it is a slightly more friendly way to accomplish the same thing.

BTW - if you stick with IE, you'll have the same problems (or just slightly different problems) down the road. Switch to firefox. When I used IE, I spent about an hour a week getting rid of spyware using Adaware, Spybot, hijackthis and a couple of other spyware programs. Each one would pick up different things, but I would have anywhere from 50-200 nasty things that I'd find every week. Now that I've switched to firefox, I get zero. Not one.
 
I just switched to firefox like 5 minutes ago. I am kicking myself for not doing this a year ago. EVERYTHING is faster.
 
Man, I've been running spybot and ad aware almost every day for the last few months and am still constantly getting slowdowns/hi-jacks. I'm buying spy sweeper tonight and switching to firefox tomorrow. I've had enough of IE!
 
Well, enough of you have chimed in to convince me to switch to firefox. In the meantime, I tried to edit the registry and here's what happened: I found the two exe files that are driving me crazy.....BUT, it won't let me delete them!!!!!! WTF?????
 
man, you got the nasty nasty, stuff!!!

You have that spyware that self replicates. Everytime you try to delete it from the registry it will somehow reinstall itself. there is a way to get rid of it but I can't tell you how. (I wouldn't be able too). None of the spyware stopping programs will get rid of it either. It's like the energiser bunny. what you need to do is google "cool web search removal" follow the directions to a T. This involves disabling some "alternative data stream" and booting in safe mode to change your registry. You have to use Hijackthis and several other tools including BHODemon. It's pretty complicated to fix.
The spyware that you have stores itself in several locations and as the spyware removal detects and destroys the first one, the second one replaces the first. Then the spyware removal "sweeps" along and destroys the second one but that is replaced by the first one that is safely past the sweep. That's why you have to disable the "alternative data stream". Anyways, I don't really know what I am talking about, it's above my head. Just google cool web search removal. There is also a tool called CWShredder that might help. Took me about a week to finally get this **** off my computer.

good luck, you'll need it.
 
99 percent of your problems disapepar after switching to firefox.
 
I switched over to Mozilla (by the way THANK ALL OF YOU who suggested it) but I have one question.

With my IE, instead of pulling up all my bookmarks (or favorites) I have the choice of pulling up just the ones I use often (when I click bookmark, only the ones I use the most pull up first) or clicking the arrow buttons and the rest of my bookmarks then pull up.

I really enjoy that feature, but I cannot seem to find it with Mozilla (IE, I went to tools, etc.)

Anyone know how to activate this feature or if it is even offered?

Thanks again,.
cool.gif
 
Unfortunately, the only reason Mozilla looks good right now is because no one has had a chance to write viruses and spyware for it. It will come soon enough. That and its CSS support still blows IMHO. Google's searchbar does a really good job of blocking popups with out being ot evasive, the search is really handy too.
 
I caught this same garbage about six months ago, and that was the last day I routinely used IE. After getting rid of it with AdAware, I downloaded Firefox (which I had never used before) and have not looked back since.
 
Yeah i got that **** back in the summer. I was useing my Gateway that i got in 98 when I came to UT. I couldnt get rid of it no matter what i tried so i just had my friend build me a new CPU for like 300 bucks.

Also i like the google search bar also. seems to do a pretty good job and havent had any problems since then.
 
Here is a link to a version of "hijackthis". The last time I went to the dudes page he wasn't putting it out there anymore for download? So insert any appropriate disclaimers here and use this at your own risk. It is virus free. I love this tool.

I believe it can kill your file you are having trouble with. Just be careful which files you delete because it is just a different way of accessing the registry.
 
The lesson is - no more gay porn.

Firefox rules.

You'll need to keep Explorer though for certain web sites.

Be very, very careful about fooling around with the registry.
 
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