Ha, ha! I just noticed the original date on the last post in this thread was one year ago - June 30, 2013!
Same here. I didn't check the date on the original post before posting -- just assumed it was a new thread because it was listed near the top of the forum.
Of course replying to a post on a one-year-old thread isn't as bad as replying to a post in a 10-year-old thread.
While the soft2secure website is probably OK, I would tread a bit carefully there. When a website simply provides a link to a "removal tool" without saying what it is, I am suspicious. When I checked, the link is to download Spyhunter which is considered malware. soft2secure gets an orange rating from WOT for promoting Spyhunter.
I think your original link to
http://www.wintips.org/remove-v9-com-homepage-v9-toolbar/ is better. Both wintips.org and soft2secure give manual removal instructions, but Wintips has better step-by-step removal illustrations. And of course links to questionable "removal tool link" make the site questionable. At best they aren't checking their links.
Glad to hear Geo is still free of it.
I wonder if there is a way for anti-malware software like MalwareBytes to detect unwanted additional software added to installers (or updates of existing software) and allow installation of the main program while blocking the installation of the extra junk during the install. Even if you uncheck the boxes during the install you can end up with extra junk.