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Computer Tech Question
08-08-2010, 07:27 AM
A friend of mine has an Acer laptop with at windows 7 OS. She accidentally hit a link ( so she sez) which downloaded an anti virus program which is now propagating pop ups like a virus. I've tried opening up the restore function while in "safe mode" but it doesn't seem to work. Uing it normally is mission impossible. Short of using the "nuclear option" (re-format and reinstall the OS), any of you folks have any suggestions?
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Spybot Search & Destroy & Avast! Antivirus
How long has she owned this laptop? Hopefully there isn't too much personal data that she could lose...
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These things can be tough little rats.
I can suggest: Malwarebytes anti-malware
Problem is it might block you from going to this website. A little trick is to download it on a seperate USB key, and rename it's installer to match a windows service, like svchost.exe. And if that don't work, you're going to have to reformat... these things hook themselves so deep into the OS that it can be hard to remove everything.
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Re: Computer Tech Question
08-08-2010, 02:02 PM
Here is an article detailing how to remove these fake antivirus malware. Hope it helps.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/8693/how ... s-malware/
“We can never undo what we have done. We can never go back in time. We write history with our decisions and our actions. But we also write history with our responses to those actions. We can leave the pain and the damage in our wake, unattended, or we can do the work of acknowledging and fixing, to whatever extent possible, the harm that we have caused.”
— On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg
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My thanks..I'll give it a try.
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Nothing like a little extortion, using your computer data as the hostage. *sighs* People who create things like this all need to be rounded up, placed in a line, and every single person who has lost time or data to their efforts brought in, issued a cricket bat each, and allowed one free shot at each person in the line, only restricted from hitting them in the head.
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Another wonderful trick for getting rid of these things is booting from an Ubuntu LiveCD (assuming the BIOS has that set). Pop it in, run the OS and you can run antivirus from there. Unless it's got its claws in deeper than usual, it's not likely gonna notice that, and you should be able to get free access to the drive for backup&exorcism with out issue.
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JFerio Wrote:Nothing like a little extortion, using your computer data as the hostage. *sighs* People who create things like this all need to be rounded up, placed in a line, and every single person who has lost time or data to their efforts brought in, issued a cricket bat each, and allowed one free shot at each person in the line, only restricted from hitting them in the head. I prefer a baseball bat. A Louisville slugger will suit.
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ordnance11 Wrote:JFerio Wrote:Nothing like a little extortion, using your computer data as the hostage. *sighs* People who create things like this all need to be rounded up, placed in a line, and every single person who has lost time or data to their efforts brought in, issued a cricket bat each, and allowed one free shot at each person in the line, only restricted from hitting them in the head. I prefer a baseball bat. A Louisville slugger will suit. Cricket bats are flatter, and thus leave more of an impression when applied swiftly to the groin area...
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robkelk Wrote:ordnance11 Wrote:JFerio Wrote:Nothing like a little extortion, using your computer data as the hostage. *sighs* People who create things like this all need to be rounded up, placed in a line, and every single person who has lost time or data to their efforts brought in, issued a cricket bat each, and allowed one free shot at each person in the line, only restricted from hitting them in the head. I prefer a baseball bat. A Louisville slugger will suit.
Cricket bats are flatter, and thus leave more of an impression when applied swiftly to the groin area... Can I trade that shot in for five minutes, alone, with a rusty spoon?
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Grapefruit, Tea or Cereal spoon?
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Quote:Kurisu wrote:
Grapefruit, Tea or Cereal spoon?
Soup spoon. It's flatter, so it'll hurt more.
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But harder to fit into an eye socket.
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That's what the five-pound sledgehammer is for. 
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*Scoffs* Amatuers. The lot of you.
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I'm gonna take the moral high road here, and eliminate the scum with a single high-powered rifle round to the head.
well, who am I kidding.. WOOD CHIPPER!
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All right folks, got one problem solved and got another one to fix.
The problem is that her laptop connects to the wireless (supposedly), but none of her browsers seem to work. Firefox is just showing a blank and IE8 sez that there is no connection. Any suggestions?
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Bad or bogus DNS entries still around, maybe? If you can see nothing on the net, that's probably it. If it's just selected sites, it might be entries in the hosts file set to loopback.
-- Bob
---------
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...and my shoes began to squeak.
Forgive the idiot question: Did you look to see if the 'Work Offline' under the 'File' tab has a checkmark next to it?
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I'll have to check it. Thanks!
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Connection
08-11-2010, 12:36 AM
Check under internet options. Some of these malwares tend to change settings to make the browser use a fake proxy server.
“We can never undo what we have done. We can never go back in time. We write history with our decisions and our actions. But we also write history with our responses to those actions. We can leave the pain and the damage in our wake, unattended, or we can do the work of acknowledging and fixing, to whatever extent possible, the harm that we have caused.”
— On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg
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Well, at least I fixed firefox
08-11-2010, 04:34 AM
I checked the settings and some of the encryptions were turned off and I changed the homepage. Works now. I tried doing it to IE8 but no go on that one.
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Eh, leave it. Microsoft will fix it eventually. 
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