Description

ClickTheButton is described as a price comparison service. It detects when you are visitng a known shopping site and provides sponsored links to competitor sites. It runs as a process on startup (ctbclick.exe) and installs a number of extra DLLs.

Distribution

ClickTheButton has in the past had reasonably legitimate distribution channels. However it has recently started being silently installed with other applications (eg. some releases of KaZaA). The FavoriteMan parasite has also installed it.

What it does

Advertising

Yes. ClickTheButton downloads parts of advertising pages when you visit a new web site. When a complete advert has arrived it will be displayed, usually as a pop-up or pop-under window.

Privacy violation

Yes. ClickTheButton monitors visits of known shopping sites.

Security issues

Unknown.

Stability problems

None known.

Removal

Versions tested have been removable from the Control Panel's 'Add/Remove Programs' feature. However the registry is left in a bit of a mess.

Manual removal

Open the registry (click 'Start', choose 'Run' and enter 'regedit') and find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. Delete the 'ClickTheButton' entry on the right. You can also delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CTB_BrandedClient, and all keys in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT that begin 'CtbClient', 'CtbSession', 'CtbShopper' or 'CtbXML'.

Restart the computer and you should be able to delete the 'CTB3_Shared' folder from the Windows folder, and the 'CTBHooks.dll' file from the System folder (which is inside the Windows folder, called 'System32' on Windows NT/2000/XP, or 'System' on Windows 95/98/Me).