I’m still trying to get a handle on the malware problem my computer picked up during installation. The CPU-hogging has been killed, but there are still other issues. The first problem is that it has its hooks into Internet Explorer and random ads pop up after the computer has not been used for a while. I can work on the computer for several hours, and it’ll be fine, but if I leave it on for an hour, I’ll come up with three porn ads. The second issue is that it has hijacked Google, Bing, and Yahoo. If I do a search, everything will come up normally, but the links themselves will send me to some link aggregator. Fortunately, it seems limited to IE, Chrome, and Firefox, leaving Safari alone, so if I need to do a search, I can. I just have to use a lackluster browser to do it. Even so, anything that gets in the way of googling has proven to be a major pain.
The first thing I did was install Avast Virus Proction, which thus far hasn’t been able to find squat (it didn’t find the CPU hog, hasn’t found any of the other problem). Then I installed Malwarebytes, which is proving similarly ineffective. But one thing they’re both dang good at is blocking one another. Unless I turn one of them off, I get a message every couple of minutes from one informing me that it has blocked something the other was trying to do.
About the Author
8 Responses to Squabbling Anti-Malware
Leave a Reply
please enter your email address on this page.
Avast is shit. I’m using Kaspersky which is considered one of the best antivirus in the world. You must not use two anti-virus at the same time.
Have you checked what services are running ? And what processes are running in your computer ?
it seems limited to IE, Chrome, and Firefox
This is like having a political debate and not inviting the Democrats, Reupublicans, and Libertarians.
None of the services jumped out at me. Nor any of the processes, at least after I got rid of the problem I mentioned the other day.
In any event, I’m restarting from scratch.
This is like having a political debate and not inviting the Democrats, Reupublicans, and Libertarians.
Except that Opera and Safari are somewhat more viable than the Constitution and Green Parties.
It’s a dll that is loaded by IE, chrome and Firefox that probably cause that. Have you checked your hosts file ?
Have you tried TDSSKiller?
Hadn’t tried it. It’s too late for this time around, but please keep the suggestions and endorsements coming because I may need them in the future.
Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
Seriously though… build behind a firewall, from scratch. Ensure windows is up to date before anything else is added. If you have anything at that point, you have a compromised install disc.
Once you have a clean install, take a clonezilla image before proceeding to software. That way you have a quick fallback if something else was your vector.