Pugi Description:
Pugi is a search toolbar program which has
been customised and stealth-installed by many
different sites.
Pugi/Searchit , pointed at www.searchit.com,
distributed through inet-traffic.com.
Pugi/SearchExplorer , pointed at
www.search-explorer.com, distributed through and
controlled by adpowerzone.com.
Pugi/Qidion , controlled by qidion.com,
pointed at www.findwhatevernow.com.
Pugi/Masterbar , pointed at masterbar.com;
also sets search pages to point at masterbar.com.
Pugi/XXXToolbar , part of the ISTbar/XXXToolbar
parasite, documented on the
ISTbar page.
Pugi Automatic Removal:
Using BPS
Adware & Spyware Remover to detect and remove
Pugi AUTOMATICALLY!
Sponsored Links:
Pugi Manual Removal:
Open Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel
and remove the entry 'Searchit - toolbar' (Searchit
variant), 'Toolbar - My toolbar' (Search-Explorer
variant), 'qidion - toolbar' (Qidion variant) or
'masterbarHallmedia.net' (MasterBar variant).
Manual removal Open a DOS command prompt
window (from Start->Programs->Accessories) and
enter the following commands, for Pugi/Searchit:
cd "%WinDir%\System"
regsvr32 /u "..\Downloaded Program Files\srchitbar.dll"
Or, for Pugi/SearchExplorer:
cd "%WinDir%\System"
regsvr32 /u "C:\Program
Files\Search-Explorer\explbar.dll"
Or, for Pugi/Qidion:
cd "%WinDir%\System"
regsvr32 /u "..\Downloaded Program Files\qi32.dll"
Or, for Pugi/MasterBar:
cd "%WinDir%\System"
regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files\MasterBar\masterbar.dll"
Restart the computer and you should be able to
delete the program files. For the SearchExplorer
and MasterBar variants you can delete the entire
'Search-Explorer' or 'MasterBar' folder in the
Program Files on the C: drive (regardless whether
or not that is your system drive).
For Pugi/Qidion use this command to delete the
files:
del "%WinDir%\Downloaded Program Files\qi32.dll"
For Pugi/Searchit use this command to delete
the files:
del "%WinDir%\Downloaded Program Files\srchitbar.dll"
2ndThought removal
If you had Pugi/SearchExplorer, check whether
it was installed by 2ndThought. 2ndThought is a
commercial trojan controlled by 2nd-thought.com.
It is installed by ActiveX drive-by-downloads
from the advertising network AdsCPM, who wrote it
(as well as
FreeScratchAndWin
).
Open the registry (click 'Start', choose 'Run'
and enter 'regedit') and find the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
On the right, delete the 'stcloader' entry if you
have it. If so, restart the computer and you
should be able to delete the 'STC' folder inside
Program Files, and '2ndsrch.dll' and 'stcloader.exe'
from the System folder (which is inside the
Windows folder, and called 'System32' on Windows
NT/2000/XP).
More
Removal Instructions for Adware/Spyware Programs -
'P'
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