"Alexa" in registry key

[Pianorak]

Having been unable this morning to connect to any websites I eventually repaired Internet Explorer after which I ran Ad-Aware which found the "Alexa" Type K cookie in one of the registry keys. :mad:

Two questions: Was Alexa responsible for corrupting the IE, and
is it safe to just remove Alexa from the system?
Thanks in advance for your response.

[YODA74]

Dump It :DBut be careful here go to the link for better info

You will find one Alexa key in the registry which comes back... this is NOT related to the toolbar which is said to be spyware but it is what IE uses to perform tools>show related links - which uses Alexa's website to do this. You do NOT need to remove this key, if you do so related items will stop working. However updates will probably reinstall it. I suspect MS used the key in order to retain some flexibility in whose "Related items" they use, the could easily change this key in future. The toolbar is not the cause of this one key...

http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm

[mjc]

This is one of the annoying items in AAW (always has been) and often a source of great confusion.

Like the link Yoda provided states, it is not spyware, and as you discovered it comes back after an IE repair.

The default page for the "What's Related" function can indeed be changed, Spybot allows you to change it to google. But if you never use the function, save a few bytes in your registry and dump it (until the next time you update/repair IE). Why on earth MS chose to use the Alexa site instead of MSN is beyond me......

[Budfred]

In the last week I picked up Alexis on both Spybot and Adaware (a few days apart) and I don't even use IE at home. I deleted it both times and it wasn't there when I last checked Spybot.

[Pianorak]

Thanks everybody for informative replies.
I now see that Alexa is an amazon.com company whose website I visited yesterday and I can only assume that's when I picked up Alexa. Which begs the question why is this the first time since I have been to amazon.com in the past without any "contamination"? Curioser and curioser.
:confused: