Unwanted Software Removal Tools

[Ingot54 13]

From time to time most of us will encounter "something" annoying on our computers ...

or something more sinister and potentially dangerous to your financial health.

 

For me, I have dealt with Trojans in the past, as well as Adware and Spyware.

Those pesky little pop-ups are usually benign, but these annoying unwanted

advertisements, or worse - redirection hijackers - can persist.

 

They can redirect your browser to a spam site, or they can infect your computer with a

keylogger (Trojan) which sends your log-in and passwords to "someone else's"

computer without your consent or knowledge.

 

One day you discover your bank account has been cleaned out, and you go looking for

the reason.

 

At the moment I have been dealing with a text-enhancer bug, that highlights certain text

keywords.

 

In the next post I'll talk about detection and removal.

[Ingot54 13]

In case you ever do encounter a "bug" on your computer, you should have a copy of

MALWAREBYTES loaded and sitting on your desktop ready to swing into action - in

"Safe Mode."

 

It is best to have it downloaded NOW because when you do need it, your computer

might be disabled and you would have to download it onto a second computer, and

then use a memory stick to transfer it to your infected machine.

 

There are other useful tools that can be used to remove unwanted adware quickly and

easily. But there are worse forms, and I'll talk about these in the next post.

 

For now, I recommend these sites for their free products.

 

Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware download

 

CCleaner - PC Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download

 

Microsoft Security Essentials Download | Free Spyware Protection

 

The third one is optional. I use it because I don't have anti-virus protection, for my own

reasons. I have found it to be OK in notifying me of problems, from where I can then

take steps to deal with the issues.

 

DISCLAIMER: While I personally have not had any issues with these, you need to

satisfy yourself that they will not do your computer any harm as well. I have used them

for a few years now flawlessly.

 

But Malwarebytes will not clean certain kinds of adware - or even detect it - if it hides in your flashplayer add-on list.

 

And that takes me to the third post ...

[Ingot54 13]

After running the stuff in the previous post, I was stuck with the text-enhancer adware,

and nothing I had on board would detect or remove it. I was certain I still had a bug, so

googled "text highlighting adware" and it led me to this link:

 

How To Remove Text Enhance Spam And Malware/Adware Hover Text Links | Botcrawl.com

 

I am running Firefox, and followed the instructions to clean it. All I had to do was scroll

down to "Removal Options" and follow the instructions for my browser. I found ONE file

extension in my add-ons file, and disabled and removed it.

 

Then I went to the second item on the list - "Disallow Third Party Flash Storage"

 

When going through the options in there (see attached screen grab) I found three

websites that had no idea what they were doing there - and removed them. You will see

a link:

 

Adobe - Flash Player : Settings Manager - Global Storage Settings Panel

 

and you should click on it and

 

The problem was solved - no more text enhancements!

[Ingot54 13]

Feel free to add your own methods to deal with this stuff when encountered.

 

Further - you might like to suggest ways to avoid getting it in the first place.

 

But that is not always possible, and when it does happen, being prepared to deal with it

can save a lot of expense and frustration ... and sometimes loss of data, loss of privacy

and loss of finances from bank accounts.

 

I mentioned I do not run an AV program.

 

But I seriously doubt that I could have avoided this bug in this instance - I got it from a

trusted site - ( I am in the process of notifying the site owners now about it, so will not

name them) - so it is possible that it can happen even when a site is white-listed.

 

I am strictly an amateur when it comes to this stuff, so will appreciate any feedback and

additional suggestions.

 

Thoughts?

[Perrin 10]

Some people suggest having a single computer for trading - and only trading (ok perhaps for banking too, but that's it) - and another computer for other things such as surfing the net, emailing, messaging, etc.

 

That way your most important computer (your trading computer) is safer (it's not necessarily 100% safe, but it's probably as safe as you can get), and if your surfing-the-net computer gets infected, it's annoying, but it's not a catastrophic loss.

 

I think it is important to keep your computer updated with the software update. It is probably also sensible to get a good virus checker (as to what 'good' is - this probably involves as much research and reviewing and work as finding a good broker!) - but at least virus checkers are not that expensive, and £30 now may save a lot of time & worry in the long run.

[Perrin 10]

While I think about it, some of these 'free virus removal' or 'scan your computer for malware' sites are in fact dodgy sites themselves (not necessarily all of them, and not necessarily the ones you mention, but again everyone needs to do their own research), and while they say they'll be removing bad stuff from your computer, they actually install bad stuff.

 

If you think about it, the perfect way for a 'bad guy' to install bad stuff on your computer is to tell you that they're helping you, then you think you're using a reputable company, but in fact you have installed a bad program which watches what you do and tells them what your bank account password is.

[Landser 10]

I use Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 - it's a complex software that consists of a firewall, AV and anti-malware. For the whole perioud of using (about a year) didn't have any problems with any kind of malware.

[TheDude 10]

I use Norton, and have done so for 10 years or so. I've never had a a virus, worm, trojan etc. Ever. A few tracking cookies and thats it.

 

Mind you, I don't surf for porn half as much as you lot though :haha: