Malware is incredibly dangerous software that has embedded and installed itself onto your computer, most of the time without your knowledge or charading as another piece of software.

What malware does

There are many different strains of malware in the world and some of them, more commonly known as adware, just display annoying adverts to you while others, known as spyware, steal information from you. Malware, strictly speaking, is the worst of the lot – it may steal information from you (sensitive information, usually) or may try and actually hijack your computer and use it for its own means. In short, malware is like a virus in that it takes over your computer to make it do whatever the malware is programmed to make it do. Furthermore, malware could be a program on your computer that allows hackers in to do what they want to do – access your network, steal your information, or just use your hard drive for their own storage or exchange of illegal files.

Things can get that serious with malware? Yes, actually it can. Most malware, however, is simply designed to force your computer to visit certain websites and such and generate traffic for these websites, so that affiliates can either make money because of 'click-throughs' or the website could show more hits than it would have gotten realistically – meaning the website owners can sell lots of advertising space, duping potential advertisers about the success of their site.

How did I get this insane piece of software?

Very often malware comes from websites you may have visited. Some websites are 'questionable' without even needing to think about it, and very often malware hides on these websites (this is why you should be careful where you browse). Others, like a search engine website, seem to be innocent enough but are very dangerous (one well known form of malware has been CoolWebSearch, which downloads to your computer without your consent when you use the CoolWebSearch search engine). However, CoolWebSearch's results for practically any search term always points to “questionable” content, which should raise questions immediately over its authenticity. These websites are obviously CoolWebSearch's advertising partners. So it is hardly a search engine, but rather a central space for all of its advertising partners, and it uses malware to further its own cause and convince its advertising partners that its working.

Getting yourself a malware removal tool

Having a malware removal tool will destroy something as sinister as CoolWebSearch in a flash, especially as CoolWebSearch has different variants as well. Some variants could be spotted by a virus remover, but most of the time you need a malware removal tool which is designed to target malware specifically.

A good malware removal tool should scan your registry, applications, internet cookies, ActiveX components, browser plug-ins, and folders. Some scanners only scan the folders – this is not good enough. What's more is that it should also be able to delete files that are suspect, not just scan them, and place these files in a quarantine directory so you can undelete them if they are in fact valid files or applications