Surfairy is an error-page hijacker implemented as an Internet Explorer Browser Helper Object. When a domain name or 404 error is encountered, it redirects to a page specified by its controlling server www.divago.com.

Divago are now believed to be defunct, as this page is now itself an error page.

Variants

Surfairy/Hlp was the original version; Surfairy/PP is an update with different filename and class ID.

Distribution

Bundled with new Packard Bell computers in Europe.

Advertising

No.

Privacy violation

No.

Security issues

None known.

Stability problems

Yes. Causes IE6 Service Pack 1 to be unable to print any page.

Removal

There should be an entry in the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs option to remove Surfairy.

Manual removal

Open a DOS command prompt window (from Start->Programs->Accessories) and enter the following commands (for the Hlp variant):

Or, for the PP variant:

After restarting the computer you should be able to delete the Surfairy folder inside Program Files.

You can also delete the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Surfairy in the registry (Start->Run->regedit) to clean up if you like.