SpyHunter 4 effective vs. Powelik? Dug up an answer!

[Onus]

My father has brought his seemingly infected PC on a brief visit, so time is short. Yes, it is infected. Norton finds nothing; I installed MalwareBytes, which found nothing, although it blocks incessant outbound attempts to get to searchnet.blinkxcore.com/ 65.45.56.109 (and a few others). Powelik is sometimes cited as well.
A search online found a lengthy removal process for searchnet, which seems irrelevant as none of the listed registry keys and/or program directories are present.
One link took me to a process using software called SpyHunter4. It found 171 entries of various sorts, including Powelik, but won't remove anything unless we pay $40 for it. Is this worthwhile? The alternative appears to be a wipe and reload, which would be nice to avoid.

 

[johnnyb105]

Have you tried spybot search and destroy????

http/www.safer-networking.org/dl/

 

[Onus]

Hmmm, found this: http/windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/163160-SpyHunter-4-Good-or-bad
...which has led me to a few alternatives I will try.

 

[Onus]

Roguekiller seems to have done it! It took multiple passes, but it seems to be clean. Dad is using it now, so I'm monitoring it...

 

[mdd1963]

Both ESET and Norton have Poweliks specific free download tools.....

 

[Onus]

Norton couldn't kill it, even using the Power Eraser tool; Norton didn't even find it. MalwareBytes could block outbound malicious web site access, but not find the infection.

 

[mdd1963]

Norton had a specific "powelik" fixer download, separate from the Power Erasor...; as to if it will be incorporated into the latter, that would have made sense to me as well...

 

[Onus]

The system has stayed clean. I'm satisfied that Roguekiller works, and have added it to my recovery tools!