dbonilla77
FYI: Registry Cleaners, not recommended
dbonilla77
FYI: Registry Cleaners, not recommended
Microsoft MVP Reconnect 2018-
Windows Insider MVP 2016-2018
Microsoft Consumer Security MVP 2006-2016
When my son used Spybot to remove sweetim his email (OE) and Messenger collapsed.
I was not involved in the recovery but I gather that it was not an insignificant process
I have tried to remove SweetPack/SweetIM by using Windows Add/Remove. After I did it, it still showed up in Internet-Explorer and Mozilla. I was able to uninstall it for Mozilla but not for the Internet-Explorer. And now I'd like to quote the Support from SweetIM:
(Source: Goto http://sweetim.sweetpacks.com/support/ and enter "SweetIM for Internet Explorer doesn’t appear in Add/Remove list, but still shows up in IE")SweetIM for Internet Explorer doesn’t appear in Add/Remove list, but still shows up in IE
Let’s try a different way to uninstall SweetIM:
1. Click on “Tools” at the top of your Internet Explorer window
2. Select “Manage Add-Ons”
3. If you are using Internet Explorer 8/9, click “Toolbars and Extensions”.
If you are using Internet Explorer 7, click “Disable or Enable Add-ons”.
If you are using Internet Explorer 6, continue to the next step.
4. Highlight “SweetIM for Internet Explorer”, choose “Disable” and click “OK”.
So, what they officially tell you here is:
"You can not really uninstall SweetIM. You can only deactivate it. We do not provide any way to remove it completely."
This is really a bad piece of software!
Last night, I downloaded a program from cnet.com: Free RAR Extract Frog. Upon installing it, I was given the opportunity to install three additional items that included SweetIM. I didn't choose any of these add-ons, and unclicked all three boxes. The installation of the program took forever; in fact, I had to manually shut the computer down, but before I did, I saw three new icon shortcuts on my desktop; SweetIM and two others. I deleted the icons, yet SweetIM "had its way" with my system.
I have Windows XP; Firefox 15.0.1; Internet Explorer 8.
SweetIM became my preferred homepage whether I used Firefox or Internet Explorer. I went to Add or Remove Programs through my Control panel, but I couldn't find SweetIM, under any name.
I went to both browsers and changed my homepage back to google, but no matter how many times I did this, SweetIM always hijacked the homepage.
I went to both browsers in order to disable SweetIM as an add-on. I did this successfully in Firefox (but to no avail; it didn't seem to help); I couldn't find SweetIM as an add-on in IE.
When I used Firefox, and when I clicked on the little "house" icon which normally takes me to my homepage, seven new tabs tried to open all at once, pages that were convinced that they were all my homepage.
Luckily, Spybot informed me that SweetIM is a bad program. I did find SweetIM in my program files, but when I clicked on SweetIM's uninstall file, nothing happened. When I clicked on Start and then All Programs, SweetIM did not appear in my program list.
I wrote to SweetIM, telling them that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for unleashing this malicious program. I asked them to help me; SweetIM's technical support sent me an automatically generated reply and suggested that I read their FAQ page; I even tried to use SweetIM's online uninstall, but to no avail. By the way, that reply did not have word wrap, and the e-mail was just one really long sentence that bled off into Outlook's right margin.
This morning (remember, SweetIM attached itself to my system late last night), I ran Spybot which detected 118 SweetIM entries (mostly in my computer's Registry). Spybot was able to clean 114 of those items, and suggested that I restart my computer, and allow Spybot to run as it restarted. When the computer restarted, Spybot ran for about 90 minutes.
When Spybot finished, I found SweetIM still in the Program directory, yet there were only four files left (perhaps these were the four that Spybot couldn't fix of the 118 it found the first time through). I deleted those items. I opened Firefox and IE where I found SweetIM as my homepage; I changed the homepages on both, restarted both browsers, and SweetIM is gone.
I've reported this problem to cnet. SweetIM is nasty; thank goodness for Spybot!
I am currently struggling w/a Medusa of a virus, and so far Spybot is the only scan that has been able to even detect it. What made me run for Spybot was 2 Russian tabs suddenly appearing on my web page.
SweetIM is part of this cabal, as well as Babylon, zwinky, Claro and much more.
Thank you to you supergeeks who help us figure out how to protect ourselves from these horrible threats.
Can't be all that hidden if you found it, but seriously if someone can't do something everyone else CAN do that isn't a virus, it's user error. I have used Sweet IM for years. I have several users on my pc which is shared and they are all in my contacts lists, for all my various accounts, Facebook, Yahoo ect. NOT one of them has ever gotten a mysterious hidden link. I don't have any virus's. My pc works fine. I haven't even had a detected virus in over two years. A good anti-virus, a good pc clean up program, some common sense about what not to do along with understanding what is a virus and what is human error and these boards might not be so full of erroneous complaints.
Sweet IM maybe spying or not, but its displays very bad behavior, it piggy backs on VLC (a media playback software to be installed (PS so does yahoo), and then gives the owner a bad time in trying to get it out. As someone whose family owns a few PCs I have already wasted a several days in taking out sweet IM from all my PCs repeatedly (a few times already when the software they piggy back on gets a new version and requires a resinstall), AV and antispyware should have an option to keep them out. SweetIM is certainly a malware.
My friend was recently infected with this browser hijacker like activities and the nature of how sweetim apps works makes it impossible to remove plus it automatically does firewall policy updating makes your product a annoyances.
All in, no matter how you said it, It's only your on verifiable worlds against the evidence of malware like behaviour your product poses or it's actions opens up backdoor.
Sweetim is a browser hijacker.