CoolWebSearch

CoolWebSearch is a Homepage Hijacker. It was quoted on The Register that "this is one of the most complex Hijacker programs ever programmed". The program first appeared in the summer of 2004. Most web sites including ours do not recommend that you try to remove this program on your own. Even experts such as Merijn Bellekom have had a very hard time when it comes to removing this. Recent variants of CWS install using malicious HTML applications or security flaws such as exploits in the HTML help format with Microsoft Java and virtual machines. Because of the nasty nature of this program, we recommend that you use Webroot Spy Sweeper to remove CoolWebSearch and many other spyware and adware programs that you may not even know is installed.

CoolWebSearch is known to have the following variants:

CWS.AddClass

CWS.AFF.IEDLL

CWS.AFF.MadFinder

CWS.AFF.WinShow

CWS.AlFaSearch

CWS.Bootconf

CWS.Ctfmon32

CWS.DataNotary

CWS.DNSRelay

CWS.DReplace

CWS.Dwinf

CWS.GoogleMS

CWS.IEFeats

CWS.LoadBAT

CWS.MSConfd

CWS.MSInfo

CWS.MSOffice

CWS.Msspi

CWS.MSwsc10

CWS.MUpdate

CWS.OEMSysPNP

CWS.OSLogo

CWS.QTTasks

CWS.Svchost32

CWS.Svcinit

CWS.TapiCFG

CWS.TheRealSearch

CWS.Vrape

CWS.XPlugin

Spyware such as CoolWebSearch is very dangerous to have on your computer and should be removed immediately.