Kiwee Toolbar problem

[millstone1005]

Hi, I need some help dealing with the Kiwee Toolbar. I did not download it. I did not install it. But it suddenly showed up the other day. As soon as I booted up and connected to the internet and started Firefox. (I use Firefox with the AdBlock add-on.) Firefox popped up their add-on window saying that Kiwee toolbar was installed. It added a toolbar and replaced my homepage with the Bing search page.

I disabled the toolbar and restarted Firefox. I went to the Control Panel and Add/Remove Programs and found three Kiwee things which I uninstalled. It seemed to work at the time. I looked online about Kiwee and there were some pages about how to remove manually, and all of the things mentioned seemed to be gone. So I figured it was gone.

It stayed gone for a couple of days, but then today, again, when I booted up and started Firefox, it told me again that it installed the Kiwee toolbar. Second verse same as the first.

Looking online, it recommends the Spyware Doctor for removal, but you have to pay for it. I do run AVG which has anti-spyware, and did a scan and it didn't find anything.

Any idea where Kiwee is coming from? And how to keep it from coming back from the dead like some kind of undead zombie toolbar?

thanks

[Eric the Grey]

The looking I've done so far with this is that, for the most part, it is not considered malware, so most of the major companies do not scrub it out (yet?). If it is getting auto-installed by a web site, that will more than likely change.

It also appears that it doesn't like to uninstall very well. Most of the instructions I've come across say to remove the folder in Program Files to fully get rid of it, and even removing some registry entries.

Here is an e-How article on it.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5919863_remo...e-toolbar.html

Good luck.


Eric the Grey

[millstone1005]

Thanks. I saw that page. The problem is that after I do the Uninstall from add/remove programs, the Kiwee Toolbar folder under Program Files is gone, so there is nothing to delete at that point (ditto with the registry entries). I'm not sure if deleting it by hand instead (or before doing the Uninstall) will help...

[millstone1005]

Update

Update: I just figured out today that the Kiwee toolbar somehow got connected to Webshots which I was running. I have gotten rid of Webshots, so hopefully my Kiwee problem will now go away.

[Eric the Grey]

Update: I just figured out today that the Kiwee toolbar somehow got connected to Webshots which I was running. I have gotten rid of Webshots, so hopefully my Kiwee problem will now go away.

Just out of curiosity, did you contact Webshots to let them know this was happening? Chances are it's coming from an ad on the site that they haven't figured out, or haven't seen the issue yet.

A responsible site will try to get rid of anything like this that adversely affects it's visitors.


Eric the Grey

[millstone1005]

I believe they know already. I found instructions on how to get rid of it posted as a "picture" in someone's album on their site.