Posted on 03/21/2009 7:08:22 AM PDT by Minn
The laptop in the house, which is currently the only computer in the house, has a bad virus/trojan/dropper that seems to have me beat. All clicks on Google are redirected to phony yellow pages. Most banner ads on normal sites are replaced with ads for a penis enlargement product (as if I need that). All communication with McAfee or attempts to download, update or reinstall McAfee fail. McAffe's instructions for disabling the virus by messing with IP address flushing do no good.
I'm hesitant to completly start over on this computer. It's an HP OEM machine that didn't come with a Windows disk, just a recovery partition. So I'm not even sure a restore from the partition will do any good, since who really knows what those do. I've searched all over for suspicious processes and registry start up settings without luck. Any ideas?
I second that. Smetimes you may have to run it 5-6 times in a row to completely rid yourself of trojans but it does work
I use Avast! (home version) It’s free and works damn well.
find someone with an old machine...not too old...and get a copy of ...say Puppy Linux...fact you could run it from a CD or a USB flash card if your computer could handle that.
See this for
Had the SPAM problem several years ago. The ultimate solution was to drop my ISP (MSN) and go with Earthlink and their spamblocker. I have since used Comcast and WOW (package deals) with only minor and temporary problems.
In my experience, Norton is a good program, but once you are on a spam list, it can do nothing about it.
Be careful about where you post your URL. I “registered” to send free e-mail Christmas cards and went thru about 3 months of spam before they quit (partial thanks to my blocked senders list).
We should all be comforted to know that no one in the current administration needs this. They are already all big pr*cks.
Find another computer...
go to download.com
download AVG free addition onto a flashdrive.
bring flash drive to infected computer.
Stop or UN-Install McAfee
download AVG onto infected computer.
Run scan with AVG...
At this point go shopping..it takes about 2hrs
Problem solved!
McAfee is a huge program...AVG is not and is used by over a few million people
Have a great day!!
Norton works!
Trouble is, now they are hitting TV big time.
ROFL!
Because putting this: 
On every web page with banner ads I visit is what this particular application is all about. I thought it might help people identify it? I'm tired of my pre teen girls seeing it, that's how perverted I am. Stay away from medical brochures in the waiting room. You might get the vapors.
LOL!
Read about using a hosts file here.
It's as simple as this: You place the hosts file (with blocking entries) in a specific folder of your Windows OS. That's all there is to it. From then on, any web content from a site referenced in your hosts file causes your browser to ask your own machine for the html. Since you don't have the actual content, the page contains, essentially, nothing. You can even add your own entries to the hosts file to prevent sites of your own declaration to not render.
If I had pre-teen girls and this junk came up, they wouldn’t be on the computer.
I share your sentiment, which is why I very much want to be rid of this thing. Sadly your position taken to it's logical conclusion these days means no more Sponge Bob. Enlargement and disfunction ads are everywhere during otherwise unobjectionable programs. Granted they aren't as provocative as an ad implying that exposing yourself to groups of young girls will get you admired, but they still make me squirm.
When I try to use the f-secure scanner on my Vista system, it hangs at the point where it says “Preparing to scan” and goes no further. Any ideas of what I might try to get past this?
Had to do exactly that. I used all kinds of programs to rid me of a virus last week, and nothing worked. Had to format the hard drive and reinstall. Was a pain in the rear.
Did the enlargement cream work?
You might need to turn off any other anti virus software that is running, or a pop blocker is stopping it. I’ve never had a problem with so I cant say for sure
Don't bother. Not a single one of those products works worth a dang...
Uh...
...or so I've heard...
Yet another vote here for MalwareBytes, it cleared my ‘puter of a nasty virus that NOTHING else would get. And as someone else mentioned upthread, you need to run it several times... I was surprised when after I ran it the first time and it supposedly quarantined the bad stuff, that it found more objects on the second scan. I think it took four or five scans before my system came back with no problems. But MalwareBytes saved the day when I had pretty much given up and was near the point of doing a complete Windows reinstall.
You should also use Spybot and AdAware, they all catch slightly different things.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.