Judgment day for my computer

[IceBlasphemy]

Aight, here's the scoop:

I was looking for ROMs at edgeemu, and as you may know there are millions of pop-ups and security warnings. So I'm about to click on a 'click here to download' button, when a Security Warning pops up, and the 'yes' button is right where I'm about to click. Just at that very instant, it pops up. So i click 'yes' by accident, and all of a sudden stuff was being installed on my computer. I got an extra search bar on the top of my internet explorer screen, Lycos sidesearch (dunno what that is), and 4 desktop icons appeared on my desktop. So i deleted the desktop icons, uninstalled Lycos, and took the extra search bar off of Internet explorer. I also got about a dozen favorites added (all advertising-- among them were 'nexium', 'get out of debt', 'win a plasma TV', etc.). But the worst is yet to come. On the internet, certain words or parts of words are blue and clickable. When I click on them, they all take me to a casino website and I can't get out of them. example- On eBay: on Nov 04, 2003, seller added the folLOWING information. LOWING represents the blue clickable part. It is like this on many if not all websites, however few words are clickable. So strange... but here is the worst part-- I get an ad pop-up every couple minutes. My google pop-up blocker takes care of about 90% of them, and I have to close the rest manually. And I also get more 'security warnings', which aren't blocked by the pop-up blocker, also about every couple of minutes. Hmm, and I forgot to mention that my applications (internet explorer, zSNES, NESten, etc.) close at random. Urgh! How can I fix this?!

[Josh]

Stop the Pop is a very good free popup blocker. All I know you can do is backup everything you want and do a system restore. That is a last resort though.

[Isostealer]

You should try to look for spyware and adware on your computer. After, you should go to add remove programs, andyou'll find a program called Text*. (the * represents I don't know the name, but I now it starts with Text.) Search that up in google, and you'll come to a site that will tell you how to get rid of it. Follow the instructions and the word links will dissapear.

How would I know? I had the same problem.

[IceBlasphemy]

I had stop the pop for a while... the demo version expired.

hm, I forgot to mention that strange errors pop up too. I glance at 'em but I close them immediately. My computer didn't have random pop-ups or random errors before, BTW.

edit: i'll try that, Isostealer. Thanks.

second generation edit: Ok. What i've got is 'TextHighlight'. I searched in google and every result is either in Japanese or has something to do with highlighting text. It's been like that for about 6 pages of search results. Can someone give me a direct link to a site that will rid me of this blasphemy?

[Isostealer]

Hmm...That's weird. Mine was texttop or something like that. Try to get Pest Patrol, Spybotearch and Destroy, and Adware. All together, they should stop it.

[Xzyx987X]

And if that doesn't help you can always stop the popups by deleting the popup program's registry key. It will be in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run (or possible RunServices). It may not completely clean up the remains of the program, but at least you don't have to look at popup's anymore. On a side note, if you don't like having to click no on all those ActiveX controls, you can set up Internet Explorer to automatically refuse them Under Tools...Internet Options...Security...Custom Level...

[Del_Boy]

Spybot Search and Destory and Adaware (as already suggested), or Hijack-this should fix it.

And probably think about upgrading to a browser such as Firebird.

[Deach]

Download hijackthis, and post the log file

[Lord Riff Raff]

Firebird won't help you in a while when Mozilla specific spyware starts to come out. What you need to do is turn off ActiveX and Javascript on IE and only allow it on trusted sites. Saves you a ton of hassle.

EDIT: This will help prevent reinfection not stop it at the moment.
For that you'll need every spyware removal tool you can get your hands on.

[IceBlasphemy]

Originally posted by Xzyx987X
On a side note, if you don't like having to click no on all those ActiveX controls, you can set up Internet Explorer to automatically refuse them Under Tools...Internet Options...Security...Custom Level...

I just tried that. Nothing happens when I click Custom Level. Does 'Internet', 'Trusted Sites', 'Intranet', or 'Restricted Sites' need to be highlighted?

Edit: This is pretty creepy. When I try to Explore, it brings me to a blank folder called 'Programs' and I can't go anywhere else. It's working now, but there's a new main Folder called 'FLEOK'. Inside, an executable called 'msbb'. I'm going to search that on google, see what it is. I'll edit again, erm, soon.

[Isostealer]

Did any of the suggested programs work?

[IceBlasphemy]

Originally posted by Isostealer
Did any of the suggested programs work?

Haven't tried 'em yet. That's actually what I was about to do, heh.

edit: Just looked up 'msbb'. It's the spyware program itself. I would copy the info here, but the right-mouse click menu isn't showing up.

2nd gen edit: The battle rages on!

http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/appmsbba.html

3rd gen edit: Just found another Spyware program, KeenValue. Gotta get rid o' that too. Such bad luck...

[Del_Boy]

Firebird won't help you in a while when Mozilla specific spyware starts to come out. What you need to do is turn off ActiveX and Javascript on IE and only allow it on trusted sites. Saves you a ton of hassle.

Compared to the myriad of probs IE has and is still getting? 7 new security problems discovered recently.

Besides with pop up blocking and no active X, it scuppers the opportunity for POS spyware such as Xupiter, and Gator to get onto your system.

[Lord Riff Raff]

Mozilla can load ActiveX.

[31337D00D]

I have googlebar, Zone Alarm, Norton 2004, router firewall, and adware 6.0, Adware i think is very effective at blocking spam and popups. Googlebar not only blocks popups but is useful. Zone alarm is just a firewall/trafiic moderator, doesn't really block popups but is still useful, and norton...jsut antivirus, but its cool too incase its a virus generated popup.

Best thing to do is system restore.