It's an epidemic!. I'm declaring spyware and browser hijackings as an epidemic based solely on this:
Just
about everyone I meet who knows what I do for a living, starts asking
me about how to clean this crap out of their systems! Seriously, the
guy who does building maintenance for our office just stopped by and
asked for some advice on getting rid of a browser hijacker! Here's the
list of links I gave him to help:
Hijack This!
Spyware Info Hijacker Page
Spybot S&D
Startup Inspector
AdAware
Then I gave him the standard set of recommended links for anyone with broadband at home:
Zone Alarm
Grisoft AVG free version
Google Toolbar -to block most site popups
And, of course, there's always mozilla.org. 
[Life of a one-man IT department]