[armada651]

That's ridiculous for a couple of reasons:

1. This is adware: sure it might not remove itself cleanly, but it doesn't have any mechanism to re-apply itself after being removed properly.

2. Malware can't magically re-apply itself when all its traces have been safely removed.

3. Reinstalling your OS is not a magic bullet, the image you're installing may also contain the same malware and there are even some viruses that will hide in your BIOS or storage firmware.

Reinstalling your OS is a "just-to-be-safe" measure when you are not sure whether you've removed all traces. But when there are proper tools available such as this one that removes all traces you are safe.

It is much more important to know what you're infected with and how to properly, than to have blind faith that reinstalling your OS will fix everything.

[DanBC]

2: once they're run software on your machine it's not your machine anymore an you cannot know that you have removed all traces of the malware.

Re-installing your OS is not a "just to be safe" measure: it is quicker and more effective than using some malware removal tool.

Using malware removal tools and not reinstalling the OS is sleazy, especially if you charge money for it.

[chatmasta]

The issue is not necessarily superfish, but also any malware that could have infected your system by exploiting the bogus CA in the past few days. You don't know if you were infected, so to be 100% safe, a fresh install is the best option.