WebAssist Plugins Spyware? – How to remove WebAssist

If you ever got the error :

Unable to find WA_memento.htm

Or if you have strange errors that occur every time you save or open files. Or if your pages don’t load include files. Or anything else strange and you have installed a WebAssist plugin, you may be surprised to find that uninstalling the plugin does nothing to help your situation. WebAssist that offers free adobe dreamweaver plugins integrate a little too much into Dreamweaver so when you remove it, it leaves things in the dreamweaver config files. So after an uninstall your dreamweaver is hobbling along with missing files. Memento is a way that WebAssist monetizes its free plugins. They are then able to monitor your usage and sell you future webassist products. I don’t hold it against them for monetizing their products but they should be treated as spyware/adware. What is more disturbing is that everytime you open or save a file, why is it accessing WebAssist? Something sneaky is going on here.

If you have WebAssist installed already and want to get rid of it, just go to Adobe Extension Manager. But deleting it in there isn’t enough. You need to then go to your Application Data folder and delete a file named : WinFileCache.dat

winxp & 2000 : C:\Documents & Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS4\en_US\Configuration\WinFileCache.dat

win7 & vista : C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS4\en_US\Configuration\WinFileCache.dat

mac : /users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver CS4/en_US/Configuration/MacFileCache.dat

Moral of the story, Don’t install WebAssist Plugins in the first place. I spent hours trying to fix this problem and its costed me a lot of valueable time instead of working.