What is Xupiter, and why does it keep wanting to be my home page?

General Questions
#1

It started a couple of months ago. Now it is not very unusual to go to a site, and have it somehow become my home page. I change it back and never go there again.

But Xupiter keeps hanging around. Not every time, but about every two weeks or so I log on to the internet and there it is.

This time, I clicked the Home icon, and it took me to a microsoft page. Strange. Does Xupiter have anything to do with Microsoft.

I would provide a cite, or site, but I don’t want this happening to you guys.

Do they have some “time release” spyware on my computer?

#2

A new “drive-by downloader” has come onto the scene recently. Xupiter.com’s browser toolbar has been finding its way onto the computers of countless people via activex installation, and people all over the net have been running around in circles trying to figure out what to do with it.
From here

Removal
Xupiter has no uninstall function. An uninstaller is available through ActiveX drive-by-download from Xupiter sites; reports suggest this works for some but not all variants, and may leave a message on bootup that Xupiter must be reinstalled.
Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware 6 can remove Xupiter.
From here

Nasty, horrible things.
Go get AdAware from lavasoft and let it try its thing.

#3

Very nasty spyware. Use AdAware to get rid of it.

#4

I hope these creepy people never discover the Mac! Ugh!

#5

doxdesk.com, in their parasite section, has great info about parasites a/k/a spyware. It also has a script that can tell you what parasites are on your system (it can’t find all of them, but it only takes a second) and give you removal instructions.

#6

Death to slimeware!