System crashes, pop-up windows, and unwanted downloads are some of the effects of the Xupiter Internet Explorer toolbar application, which has raised the ire of many surfers who liken the Xupiter experience to a drive-by shooting.rnrn
The program has a faulty uninstall utility, has hijacked users to other URLs, and has inserted random characters in page views. In addition, every few weeks its mystery programmers tweak the code to hamper fixes.rnrn
Calls to Xupiter.com's owners, the Hungary-based Tempo Internet, were not returned.rnrn
"Xupiter is the worst thing I've ever personally encountered on the Internet," said Ed Olexa in Wired.com, "You only realize that is has been installed when you start your browser and see that Xupiter's search page is now your homepage."rnrn
Fixes have ranged from the reinstallation of Internet Explorer (always tricky), manual edits of Windows registries, and Spybot Search & Destroy, an anti- spyware program.
