I use ExpatShield--and I love it--but I missed a config option during install which allowed the VPN client to hijack my Windows 7 Taskbar Address Tool. Nothing could shake it--uninstall, reinstall, adware hunters, even Revo. My search terms continued to be referred to a private search page...
http://search.expatshield.com/g/results.php?c=s&q={searchTerms}
...which would typically yield no results, and the query would be redirected to Bing. I'm happy for AnchorFree to be incentivised for the traffic--and Bing is a perfectly competent search engine--but after so many years, I'm just better at extracting information from Google's SERP.
Why go to all that fuss and take a chance on messing up the Registry.
The only inconvenience digging around in the registry is all the safeguards and protections you are well-advised to take. As long as you set a Restore Point (
Start >
Computer Right-Click >
Properties >
System Protection >
Create Restore Point), you should be fine, but I always take a screencap before and after--and save it to an external drive, in case C:/ becomes difficult to access.
Regedit is easy to use and it can search the registry with surprising speed. I entered a fragment of the query string described above, and was soon presented with the offending registry entries to edit (or eliminate):
I just wanted to restore Google Search, so I overwrote the private search string with:
http://www.google.com/search?q={Search Terms}