Search Engines Acting Weird

[Nathan]

:Nathan Batsignal:

[PANatsFan]

anybody know how to get rid of the Vista Antispyware 2010 virus/thing?

i got my mcafee running a check now. looks like it might take a while. not sure if it is going to work, because it let this thing through originally

Bleepingcomputer.com and Malwarebytes downloaded from another machine worked for me. Then I put NoScript on my wife's machine.

I like Webroot a lot. It's 30 dollars a year for 3 machines, pretty reasonable.

[Dave B]

i used chiefs link, but the thing wouldnt let me run it. went to that bleepingcomputer site.  downloaded some registry fix. then malwarebytes was able to run. still running. using a different computer now. good thing i had two. i downloaded the registry fix and another version of mwb on the other one and put it on a flash drive

[The Chief]

The single best piece of wisdom I can provide on fighting malware:

Almost anything will run if you rename it "iexplore.exe"

Of course that doesn't always help if you have to go through multiple steps where a program extracts itself then runs an installer, but it's good for getting task manager running so you can kill any rogue processes.

[PANatsFan]

The single best piece of wisdom I can provide on fighting malware:

Almost anything will run if you rename it "iexplore.exe"

Of course that doesn't always help if you have to go through multiple steps where a program extracts itself then runs an installer, but it's good for getting task manager running so you can kill any rogue processes.

That or a rescue DOS floppy. Oh wait . . .

[The Chief]

Actually the last time I got a virus was on a floppy disk, and even then it didn't make it to my computer, just the floppy.  I've even spent days at work sometimes just going around intentionally trying to "catch" something on a test machine with no AV.  Still didn't get anything.

So WTF are all these people doing?

(no offense Dave)

I actually saved a copy of a pictures/viagra popup virus that someone got a few weeks ago because I thought such things were an urban legend

[PANatsFan]

are they going to conflict with mcafee later?

Uninstall it and throw it in the garbage. I love that they install this crap on new laptops and sometimes it keeps you from connecting to the internet until you get rid of it.

AVAST! Antivirus + Webroot + NoScript is a winning combo for me. AVAST is totally free for home use.

[The Chief]

NoScript is too much work for a normal user IMO.  AdBlock or whatever equivalent for your preferred browser should be enough.  Not familiar with Webroot but Avast and MSE are both great (and free).

[PANatsFan]

So WTF are all these people doing?

Malicious code inserted into ads or the actual source of legitimate pages. The last two viruses my wife got were from the MSN portal and a baby forum.

[The Chief]

lol nice quote

[PANatsFan]

NoScript is too much work for a normal user IMO.  AdBlock or whatever equivalent for your preferred browser should be enough.  Not familiar with Webroot but Avast and MSE are both great (and free).

That's how she got the virus from the baby forum though. It takes 5 minutes to learn NoScript.

[PANatsFan]

lol nice quote

Misplaced parentheses are a total nag. Tracked down a couple this week

[The Chief]

That's how she got the virus from the baby forum though. It takes 5 minutes to learn NoScript.

I didn't say it was hard to learn.  It's a pain in the ass to fix every little thing that it breaks though.  As far as all these malicious scripts go, I must be poking around the wrong corners of the web, because I've never once gotten anything that way, intentionally or otherwise, and all I'm using is Firefox + AdBlock.  Then again I do have a healthy hosts file that blocks a lot of stuff.  Preferable to NoScript, less work, equivalent results (apparently)

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

[Nathan]

I haven't had any of that stuff for over 5 years, and have yet to get any viruses or malware.  Just saying

[The Chief]

I haven't had any of that stuff for over 5 years, and have yet to get any viruses or malware.  Just saying

Neither have I, that's kinda the point

<===  haven't used AV on home PC since...  pretty much ever, really.  Use MSE and Sophos at work to CMA, but the results are no different.

[Dave B]

Actually the last time I got a virus was on a floppy disk, and even then it didn't make it to my computer, just the floppy.  I've even spent days at work sometimes just going around intentionally trying to "catch" something on a test machine with no AV.  Still didn't get anything.

So WTF are all these people doing?

(no offense Dave)

I actually saved a copy of a pictures/viagra popup virus that someone got a few weeks ago because I thought such things were an urban legend

nothing i dont normally do.  malwarebytes didnt find anything. i found some other directions that told me files to manually delete. might try that later

[PANatsFan]

This thread has inspired me to actually fix my old XP desktop that we just shelved when it got a nasty, nasty trojan. I really want that FiOS media server. Hopefully they'll update the box firmware, and you could watch video over it that's isn't horrible lagged.

[The Chief]

seems like an appropriate time to post this:

[Dave B]

i did the registry edit thing that was described in those sites directions. ran malwarebytes a couple times and it didnt find anything. when i rebooted, the vista antispyware windows stopped popping up and stuff seemed to work. ran malwarebytes a couple of times and it never found anything.

is it gone?
i think some other instructions i found were more manual and told you to delete specific files. might try to look to see if those files are still there.
should i try an online scanner? recommendations? kasperskey?

[The Chief]

You could try MSE again if you're able to install it now.  I've seen it take care of a lot of things that other scanners don't catch.  Or any of the stuff PA suggested.

Were you running quick scans or full scans with MBAM?

[Dave B]

You could try MSE again if you're able to install it now.  I've seen it take care of a lot of things that other scanners don't catch.  Or any of the stuff PA suggested.

Were you running quick scans or full scans with MBAM?

thanks. full

[Dave B]

so what is the deal with all these other antiviruses. MSE, etc. they are better than norton, mcafee, etc. are and free? i ran MSE and it didnt find anything. do these things ever mess up and not find stuff like this?

[The Chief]

I'm not going to pretend to know which is "best" - I can only offer my own opinions and experiences - but I'm going to wager that most people "in the know" would agree that Mcafee is crap and Norton is a shadow of it's former self.

Avira, Avast, and NOD32 are all names I've heard highly recommended.  I wasn't that impressed with Avira, but Avast always did a good job.  Haven't ever used NOD32.

AVG used to be popular but the free version is bloated and pretty ho-hum these days.

I've personally seen MSE catch and successfully clean up a lot of stuff that others failed to, but I would wager that a lot of that is simply a benefit of being new on the scene - crapware writers haven't had time to work out it's weaknesses yet.  I could be wrong, only time will tell for sure.

Here's a site that gets mentioned a lot as one of top resources for comparing AV suites:

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

[The Chief]

On review, that site apparently gave Symantec the "award" for 2009, so maybe they've cleaned up their act.

[GburgNatsFan]

I had great luck with MSE recently, when nothing else worked. I thought I was completely up the creek and it cleaned everything up within two or three reboots.

I used Avira and others prior to using it, but I'm gonna stick with MSE for a while. And I think Microsoft is the evil empire, so that's saying something.

On review, that site apparently gave Symantec the "award" for 2009, so maybe they've cleaned up their act.