I was frustrated for a whole week since that damned 'Total Security' screwed my system up to where I could not connect to google or search for anything. Yahoo and msn connected , but still no search capabilities, just 'this page cannot be displayed'. Did all the usual stuff like running Super antispyware at first in safe mode, finding the trojans and deleting them, emptying dns, uninstalling IE three times, reinstalling and more, all with no luck. Came across a guy, on another helpful site with a similar problem, who showed us all the way out of this crappy place.
He went into Windows, system32 looked for a file which had 'hosts' in it, installed deviously by the malware decribed above on the date of the infection, and deleted the file. VOILA!!
All other files in system32 were dated 2004, when I got the computer, so that bad one stood out like a sore thumb!
Good luck....try it and let me know what happens.
If I sound like I know WTF I'm talking about, forgive me...all I care about is....IT WORKED!