To The Company That Infected My Computer

A quick GTH and FU to the company that somehow infected my computer with a nearly uninstallable extension. Thanks for adding ads and pop-ups to my browser. I hate you

A quick GTH and FU to the company that somehow infected my computer with a nearly uninstallable extension. Thanks for adding ads and pop-ups to my browser.

I hate you.

Your software package has been removed permanently. It didn’t go without a fight.

I am extremely diligent. I read EULAs… or at least scan them. I don’t click blindly. This must have snuck in with something else.

It made it past Microsoft’s normally respectable Windows Defender. It wasn’t found on a second more thorough Defender scan either.

Malwarebytes got it. Hats off to you.

The people who design these browser hijacks are hardcore. If this stuff is on your PC the number of ads you see has multiplied! Mine also picked keywords and highlighted them. Using javascript, popover boxes were spawned when you moused over the words. Annoying.

The culprit is a browser extension. It seems to be randomly named, because when I entered it in Google I got no returns!

If you remove it or disable the extension, it respawns! Remove what seem to be the executables, it finds another way to execute. You might kill it for a session, but it’s back after every reboot.

It took around an hour to truly kill it. Malwarebytes found 14 instances of suspicious code on my machine. Gone-zo… but not without some serious sweat.

I’m a techie. I know how this stuff works. It wasn’t particularly fun nor easy. You’re mucking around near critical files. Think surgeon.

Anyway, it’s gone. I’ve rebooted a few times All is well.

I asked Helaine how non-techies deal with this? She didn’t have to stop and think.

“They buy a new computer.”

21st Century problems.

3 thoughts on “To The Company That Infected My Computer”

  1. I’m glad you were able to eradicate it, finally. These kinds of intrusions are a scourge and I really don’t see that they will ever be gone entirely. I must be lucky I guess. I’ve been invested in all this since the Vic20 back in the early eighties. I’ve never gotten a virus or a critical malware situation. I’ve been scrupulous with browsing, downloads, etc., and so far so good. And I don’t mean to imply that you weren’t. They’re just so insidious with their code, and they’re always advancing and learning. I don’t know a solution to this. I do know that it has to be looked at with a keen eye for the internet to flourish. Maybe there’s no answer? IDK.

  2. I’d drop the Defender and get Avast!, it’s free, does a good job, AND importantly has a boot-time scan it can run which does a great job. That combined with a malware bytes scan run in safe mode creates a nearly unstoppable virus killing force. Rarely do we have to resort anything more extreme.

  3. Good old Malwarebytes! That is my go to software when my browser starts misbehaving. Glad you were able to eradicate that hijack.

    More and more companies are “pig piling” other software into their packages, and to me it is despicable.

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