One post has brought this site more traffic than anything else ever before. My article on removing Fast Browser Search. That nasty little search re-director that gets installed when you install a Facebook plug in called Web Tattoo.
The story thus far. For some reason I decided to install web tattoo. I knew it was probably going to install something else. Rule #1 – Programs on the internet that claim to be free, especially add-ons for social sites, aren’t really free. I just figured I could uninstall whatever it slipped in. After I uninstalled Web Tattoo, from FireFox and using add and remove programs in the windows control panel, and it was still redirecting my traffic to Fast Browser Search, I’d just remove it with Spybot or Ad-Aware or Hi-Jack This and remove it from the registry. However, none of these detected it and I couldn’t find any sign of it in the registry. Then I did a search on the internet and couldn’t find anything about removing it either. So I did some thinking and figured out how to remove it. Seeing how there was such a lack of articles dealing with this pest, I figured it would be the perfect thing for my blog. So I wrote this article on how I removed it from FireFox .
Next thing I know there’s a spike in the traffic coming to my little unknown blog. I was happy to learn that referrers were search engine results for “fast browser remove” and other similar queries. All of them looking for a way to take out this blasted thing. For a short time, my blog was on the first page in google if you were searching for a way to remove it. This got me pretty jazzed. I’ve had this blog for a couple years but never had much traffic before. After a couple weeks, the traffic to that article I wrote started tapering off. I was no longer in the first page or two when people searched for it. Then all the sudden it spiked again. Turns out someone on a google forum had Fast Browser Search take over their browser. Next thing I know I’m getting a ton of hits again, this time all comming from this post. Now if the people this helped would just click on my google adds, I could earn a couple cents in this tough economy 
There was only one problem. My article only covered how to remove it from FireFox. Turns out there are plenty of people with Internet Explorer who have been attacked by this scourge known as Fast Browser Search. So here is what I’m going to do. Initially I was going to install Windows XP on a virtual Machine. But this would take quite some time and work before I could deliberately infect myself with Fast Browser Search. So I decided to take a short cut. After I’m done writing this, I’m going to create a new user account in windows, head over to Facebook and install Web Tattoo while using Internet Explorer. Then I’m going to figure out how to remove it and write part 2 of this article. So check back in a day or so, hopefully it won’t take me longer than that to figure out. If you would like to show some appreciation, click on my google adds, or leave me a reply. I love getting replies and hearing from you.
20 Comments
Hey, have you seen this news article?
New details about Michael Jackson’s Death Emerge
I was wondering if you were going to blog about this…
Not here unless his death was caused by a computer or a website. IMO, there’s already too many gossip blogs.
Articels like this make life so much simpler.
Cool post, just subscribed.
I posted a link on facebook to your site about the Fast Browser Search after following an ad offering bad caricature drawings to use on social networks. It was mytattoons, a site that said you needed to download this because of a browser support issue. I always search for reviews before any type of download. Your site came up high on the list and I thought passing it along may help someone else. Thanks.
Thanks for helping to spread the word Tim. This thing is so bad almost all the traffic to this blog is people searching for how to get rid of it.
Thanks much for this awesome piece of text.
Wheeovr wrote this, you know how to make a good article.
Thank You! What a relief. FBS seems to be gone from my computer. I did what you recommended above, and also put a HiJack This! scan thru this site http://www.hijackthis.de/en. It picked up a couple more locations, which I then whacked. [Thank you for what you said here -Chris]. Thank you again!
Dave
I hope you succeed soon and put a solution, because nobody seems to know how to remove it.
Wow, I am usually pretty relaxed about these kinds of things but this blasted thing has got me really peeved. Cheers for the article. Sure I’ll click. S
If you are having a problem with Fast Browser Search, just call them and they will remove it for you. 1-800-831-8940
Pin my tail and call me a donkey, that really hleepd.
I had to add these steps to finally get rid of fbcrap from my firefox.
1) close firefox
2) search ALL your drives for fbstoolbar.jar and fistoolbar.manifest
3) delete those suckers
4) be happy – it should be gone AND it wont come back
Thanks NJB. I found and deleted the fbstoolbar.jar but the other one wasn’t found on my computer.
Safari/Mac — obviously out of your province. I just joined Facebook – never downloaded anything. Next thing I know some Tattoo thing had taken over as my home page – I didn’t do it. The blasted Fast Browser thing took over my search slot.
The FB removal instructions for Safari don’t work as I didn’t download the file in the first place and I can’t find it in extensive searches. Not where one might expect it to be.
I might have to uninstall Safari entirely in order to get rid of it.
Why do I bother callnig up people when I can just read this!
i am in desperate need for ur help…. fast browser search my web tattoo is not unistallin from my hard drive…please help me i am desperate
Peaches, there are several pages here with help on removing that. Other than that, the only way I could help is to log in remotely to your computer and do the same things I posted. If you were to make a fair donation to this site, I will do that. If you do make a donation, leave me another comment with an e-mail I can reach you at and a phone number, which will remain private of course. I’m replying to you this way in case there are others who would be interested.
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I was thinking about how I could offer this kind of help and if I would even be able to, do to time constraints I have in my life at the moment.