I have a virus

[Matt88S]

and for the life of me I can't kill the sorry bleep.

It somehow made it past my antivirus software (AVG) which has now expired and good riddance I say if its not going to work proper I need to get a better one then anyway.

Anyhow, its a fairly benevolent little creature, its just when I do a search like on google, then I click on a link, instead of taking me to that website it forwards me to its own search engine or another website. Its taking me partially to legitimate websites and partially to just those random hey we can find anything for you search engines. Nothing bad like porn or anything though. Sometimes I can't backclick out and sometimes I can double backspace my way out and reclick on the original link and go to the website I intended to without it forwarding me again.

I've thrown AVG, Spybot search and destroy, and Stinger at it and all of them come up empty or find, destroy, and then it comes right back. I'm surprised that being it seems like such a simple little creature that all these can't seem to find and/or kill it.

This is really annoying, perhaps the most frustrating is that I don't know how to fix it. Anyone have any advice on exactly what this is, ie virus, spyware, adware (whatever the differance is ) and how I should go about tracking this down and killing it? If I change antivirus protection and go with something like McAfee, will it hunt down and kill it even though its already on the computer? Do I need to take it in to the shop?

Anyone have any advice on who's a good antivirus provider/service? I was thinking of McAfee, they seem to be pretty popular.

[CL65Pilot]

It sounds like adware or spyware more than a virus, check out a program called ad-aware (its free), and/or Pc-cillin (not so free). Try Adaware first, that will most likely find alot of stuff that the anti virus programs do not.

[DanF.]

try norton Virex

or (already ducking for cover) get a Mac

[grif900]

try spybot search and destroy and adaware se,both free and at least worth a try.

[omegajb]

Panda has a free online scanner that helped my brother in the past. It sounds like your browser was hijacked.
Make sure all your computer is updated and any patches are installed. Also you can try www.pcpitstop.com you need to sign up but it's free and overall it's a decent way to see whats wrong.

[Matt88S]

Spybots been tried, no luck. I'm trying ad aware right now.

[grif900]

you know matt,i hate to admit it but, i went and bought a newer version of norton a.v. after my free thing ended (bundled stuff that came with the p.c.) and wouldnt you know it all of my spyware issues magically vanisihed .now who do you suppose would have the time and resources to come up with this crap and then know exactly how to get rid of it? mysterys abound.

[TakeItEasy]

Try the new FREE AVG anti-spyware program. If I remember right, it gives you the full version for the first 15 days, after that you have to do the updates manually. It's still a great program after the full version runs out.

Also try the free Avira AntiVir virus program.

Good luck

[Raven18940]

Please don't get Macfee, it's junk. Avast has very good free AV software, you need only register an email address with them every 14 months and they don't send you spam.
http://avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Also, are you using firefox?
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

There are also some good online scanners to try
http://www.ewido.net/en/onlinescan/
http://www.trendmicro.com/hc_intro/default.asp
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

The last one, Kaspersky, only detects viruses, you have to delete them manually, but it will find 99% of all viruses, while everything else is around 75-80%.

[Matt88S]

I use firefox some. I should use it all the time but I'm so brainwashed to use explorer....


The ad aware is trying, it detects and removes but try the internet and its clean for a bit then it starts up again, scan again and it picks it right back up, removes it again, rinse repeat though.

[TakeItEasy]

Originally Posted by Matt88S

The ad aware is trying, it detects and removes but try the internet and its clean for a bit then it starts up again, scan again and it picks it right back up, removes it again, rinse repeat though.

I still have Spybot and Ad-aware on my pc's but since getting AVG's Anti-spyware I don't use them much anymore.

[timmehhhhhh]

Have you downloaded all of the Windows Updates?

[woywitka]

Originally Posted by DanF.

get a Mac

but Matt needs a computer

[MudMover]

I think Omegajb is right when he says your browser has been hijacked.


The AV programs may well have removed the initial code that caused it - but the registry entries that cause the behavour will still exist. You'll need to manually edit your registry to get rid of the problem. It happened to me a few years ago - exactly the same symptoms and no amount of Ad-Aware etc. would shift it.

Just do a Google search for hijacked browser and you'll get a lot of info there. Seems like, since I went through the process, things have moved on and there are freeware programs out there which should help you out a little.

I don't want to post any links here, as I don't want to lead you to a program that may not be all it seems. That'll have to be your call.

Good Luck,

Phil

[bazwold]

Originally Posted by Matt88S

I use firefox some. I should use it all the time but I'm so brainwashed to use explorer....


The ad aware is trying, it detects and removes but try the internet and its clean for a bit then it starts up again, scan again and it picks it right back up, removes it again, rinse repeat though.

Im not very pc literate but if it keeps coming back I was told to do a scan with system restore turned off , scan again ,then turn restore back on. Someone more knowlegeable with probably tell you more on this.

[Tomarse]

Originally Posted by Matt88S

It somehow made it past my antivirus software (AVG) which has now expired and good riddance I say if its not going to work proper I need to get a better one then anyway.

If AVG has expired because you were using version 7.1 then it has been giving you a popup message saying 'download version 7.5 before this version expires in feb' since about november! (i had been ignoring it until last week)

[cdaly]

I'd nearly forgotten such things existed. I've not used MS Windows at home for about 8 years now (The kids do use Win98 for a few games but that machine is not allowed out on the internet). I don't use MS at work either and anyway, it's not my problem there.

Ubuntu comes in many flavours or Fedora. You just won't have these issues to deal with and, given that you don't want to go near the defective by design Microsoft Windows Vista , now is just the right time to switch...

[Raven18940]

Originally Posted by cdaly

Ubuntu comes in many flavours or Fedora. You just won't have these issues to deal with and, given that you don't want to go near the defective by design Microsoft Windows Vista , now is just the right time to switch...

OK, so here's Matt who's having trouble removing some ad ware so he's probably not a computer expert and you want to throw linux at him. Stupid hippy programmers, DRM isn't a big deal in the real world.

By, the way, vista rules as long as all the drivers work, and that will only be an issue for another couple months.

[unkleG'sif]

our pc at home does exactly the same... no amount of Google Toolbar, AdawareSE, AVG or variety of AV, Spam, Spyware scans seem to stop these infernal pop ups (dont even know that they are pop ups, just ads for new phones, searches and gambling... with the occaisional WWF (wildlife, not wrestling) one as well (which winds me up most actually - expected better from them)

G

[UK9K]

The Yahoo toolbar has a built in spyware scanner.