How do you remove SurfSidekick?

[Bob]

This is an especially insidious form of spyware, as it
seems to prevent manual deletion (Cannot delete--other SW
running that requires it) and it also installs other
spyware. Anyone know how to deal with it?

 

[Engel]

How do I uninstall Surf Sidekick?
If you choose to uninstall Surf Sidekick, you can do so
easily from the Add/Remove Programs option available in
the Control Panel in your Windows' Settings.


If you have problems download Ewido and Ccleaner,then
scan in safe mode (reboot and keep tapping F8 then
choose safe mode from the list)

Download Ewido

http://www.ewido.net/en/download/

Install ewido.
During the installation, under "Additional Options"
uncheck "Install background guard" and "Install scan via
context menu".
Launch ewido
It will prompt you to update click the OK button and it
will go to the main screen
On the left side of the main screen click update
Click on Start and let it update.
DO NOT run a scan yet. You will do that later in safe
mode.

Download Ccleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp


Reboot into safe mode (Reboot and tap F8 and choose safe
mode)

Open Add/Remove screen and remove SurfSideKick

Run Ewido and choose scanner then Complete System Scan
During the scan it will prompt you to clean files, click
remove for each

(When it finishes scanning it will give some options at
the bottom of the screen, choose save report and save it
to your desktop)


Run MSAS on a full scan and remove anything found

Run Ccleaner and press "Run cleaner"


Then Reboot back to normal mode

Let us know if you have any problems

Andy

..

 

[Guest]

It's not that simple. It doesn't appear in the list of
installed programs.

 

[Monitor]

http://www.surfsidekick.com/faq.htm#uninstall

 

[AndyManchesta]

Follow the rest of Engels post about running Ewido and
Ccleaner, SSK stores files in temp folders so use Ewido
to remove the malware files and then use Ccleaner to
clear the temp folders , If you have problems then run
the scanners in safe mode

There's alot of registry entries for SSK but I dont
thinks its worth you editing the registry but remove the
SurfSideKick folder from program files area of c:drive,
If its not appearing in Add/Remove or c:drive then either
some scanner has removed the uninstall entry and c:drive
folder or its not installed and may just be in temp
folders so just use Ewido and Ccleaner to remove the
final traces.

Regards

Andy

 

[Bob]

Thanks, Engel and AndyManchesta, for your suggestions. In
the meantime, Microsoft apparently simplified the
solution by updating the MSAS definition files to handle
SSK, because when I ran it just now it definitely got rid
of SSK for once and for all.