# Who´s responsible for the Cool Web Search trojan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 12, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484 "2004-08-12T03:37:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484/21 "2004-08-13T12:30:53Z")
CWS usually attacks through security holes in Internet Explorer and MS Java. Spyware Blaster seems to do a good job in preventing its installation. ---
**Author:** ![Bumbazine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bumbazine/32/362_2.png) [@Bumbazine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bumbazine)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484/22 "2004-08-13T16:39:11Z")
Possibly just an aside here, but in searching the web for CWSShredder yesterday, I find that it doesn;t seem to be available anymore. 😕 Anybody have a viable link? ---
**Author:** ![Jpeg\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@Jpeg\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jpeg_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484/23 "2004-08-13T16:59:49Z")
> [@tadc](#): > > Maybe I’m just lucky, but I find it easy to avoid these things by just clicking the X box on any questionable popup. Not Yes, not No, just X. You should go one step further and only close pop-ups from the Start bar (right-click on the icon at the bottom of the screen and choose “Close”). Some pop-ups I’ve seen have fake X boxes. If you click them, you still go to their website. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484/24 "2004-08-13T17:29:32Z")
> [@Bumbazine](#): > > Possibly just an aside here, but in searching the web for CWSShredder yesterday, I find that it doesn;t seem to be available anymore. 😕 > Anybody have a viable link? It’s CWShredder, not CWS **S** hredder, and it can still be found [here](http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4086.html). Though it hasn’t been updated since June, so it is not effective against some of the latest, most agressive variants of CWS. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484/25 "2004-08-13T20:17:06Z")
This afternoon, I went to set up a brand new machine. I attempted to uninstall the Java client, and Windows was unable to find the unistall routine. Upon inspection, I found that the vendor was shipping these machines with the Sun Java VM already installed! I don’t know if this is because Microsoft is no longer supporting the old MS Java VM, or if it is because Gateway doesn’t want to install a vulnerable component. Very interesting indeed. ---
**Author:** ![LifeSizePotato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LifeSizePotato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeSizePotato)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484/26 "2004-08-13T21:06:12Z")
Ironically, after reading this thread I thought “Hmm, better make sure my computer doesn’t have any traces of this thing.” Downloaded CWShredder, and within 5 minutes I had more spyware and hijackers than I’ve had in the past 2 years. None of them seemed to be CoolWebSearch, but they were just as annoying. I had to get HijackThis! to eliminate them all. I don’t know if there’s something fishy with CWShredder or what, but in any case I recommend HijackThis!. Took care of the problem in a few seconds. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-s-responsible-for-the-cool-web-search-trojan/259484.md?page=1)