I am almost certain I got a browser virus. It occurred when I downloaded a new Codec to fix up a steam game, which hindsight tells me I probably shouldn't of done, especially since my computer gave me a small warning saying that the codec was going to change some files. So, either way, I got a new tool bar called news.net, which spammed me with a heck lot of advertismenets, Adblocker was blocking them but it still slowed down and screwed up my browser for both mozilla firefox and Chrome. I easily removed and uninstalled the toolbar, thinking that was the end of it, but I've been noticing subtle effects as well.
For one my browsing experience is still slower, I can observe jumps in loading and scrolling itself isn't smooth, with random "bumps" and freezes while scrolling. Despite having adblocker I get pop ups for surveys, but these pop ups aren't normal random pop ups, they are website specific. For example, if I go to google a pop up will appear claiming it is a google survey, if I go to logitech a pop up will appear saying it's a logitech survey, now unless google got hacked, I'm pretty sure there is a spyware on my computer monitoring what websites I access. Some other subtler effects I've noticed happen outside my browser, I hear the sound as if my mouse clicks randomly at times, even if I have not clicked them and as well, for some reason, minimized windows tend to move to the bottom right of my screen, even if I keep them at the top right (After I minimized them).
Now I have a crap AV software installed, I downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials, however I've done some external scans with a microsoft dedicated scanner and malicious software removal tool, but none of these tools can pick up a spyware on my computer, but I am very sure that all these symptons run parallel to what a spyware could be capable of.
So does anyone have any advice on how I can remove this spyware from my computer and purge it's existence?
EDIT: The virus is called the News.net toolbar virus. Generally it doesn't seem like an adaptive virus, I removed all the browser specific toolbars of the virus, but the virus is still on my desktop. A guide has told me to go to control panel to look up the virus and uninstall it there, but doing so leaves no files of interest to be listed. I can't find the news.net toolbar (which is apparently what is causing the virus) in the computers control panel