Help needed Please

Just_landed

My Norton’s Internet Security keeps finding a Trojan Horse on my computer and Quarantines it (risk = High) I also have full page adverts take over my monitor, I presume it’s all associated. Please help how do I get rid of this problem ?

Sparhawke

I don't know why people keep insisting on using Norton...

I would personally remove it and get a triumvirate of AVG, Spybot and Adaware, with a firewall such as panda or avast.

All these programs are free if you hit upon the correct page and are easily downloadable from CNet, the best place to find lots of free goodies.

I wondered sometime ago what the hell Symantec are doing and whether they really want to panic people into upgrading, they took Sygate off the market once by buying them out because they were a far superior brand of firewall, military grade or very close to it...

If no one is panicked you have no one to waste money on your product

Anyways, using a combination of the 2 spyware programs and Avg plus the firewall I have not had a problem in over 4 years. And that is all without any of Nortons dubious "help"

Tell me just out of interest, is your registration or license period with Norton coming to an end? [/knowing wink]

Sparhawke

[cont]

You have to try to think back to where you were when all the problems arose, some sites make a couple of pop ups jusp up at the screen at you as a matter of course anyway and there isn't much you can do about this.

However, if you are watching WMP and a movie or somehting and then suddenly IE opens up to 200 pages of spam, moneyscamming offers, women which not much clothing on for no apparent reason then you do have spyware or a virus, and if you can identify it by name you can google it and make sure you get a specialist fix before the next program update appears if one is available.

What is the name of this "virus"?

Just_landed

Hi Sparhawke to answer your Q = 5 months . even when I try to write a post on MSE I have to log in again even though the button on the left is green,. I will go to where you suggest and have a go, latters.;)

Sparhawke

Stuff like this may interest you, simply type "norton scam" into google

http://forums.techguy.org/all-other-software/549021-norton-renewal-scam.html

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=15742.15

there are literally hundreds of threads out there with people ranting about how Norton trap them into keep paying for their substandard software...

Better to get out now while you can lol

Just_landed

Hi again just switched computer off and on in because avast says you have to, to activate their program. Takes ages on my computer to start up. Hence, I saw an advert saying Babylon can help speed up the start up of computers . There is no difference when I logged into MSE in fact it's just appeared behind this screen that I am typing this on, there is a full page advert for an I Phone. I am convinced it's that program that has infected my computer. I have been into add/remove programs Babylon is there, but it does not allow you to remove the program, Any other suggestions :question:

Sparhawke

http://forums.speedguide.net/archive/index.php/t-30675.html

Go to post 15 and copy all that into your hostsfile under the existing local host...basically it should kill popups before they ever get to you. Simply put, it just tricks the advert spam into thinking you are already being pestered by their adverts and that moves them onto some other poor sod....no point in wasting resources on someone who is already getting hammered is there?

To find your hosts file go to C>Windows>System32>drivers>etc>hosts
Open with notepad and simply paste it in at the bottom though it is quite an old post and you may need to hunt around for an up to date one

If it doesnt work for you, you will be able to easily take it out by re-following the steps

Spybot which I mentioned earlier should take care of this for you

Just_landed

Hello Sparhawke been in the Bermuda triangle for a few days.

Thank you for the links I have done what it says and yes there is a difference, a lot less adverts what I did for a while being on Google I changed the way I visit these websites and went through their CHROME (I think its called) which cut the adverts out completely. Some websites I visit would not work properly on CHROME so I also used the normal Google via IE 8 so the adverts appeared when I accessed the sites this way. Another thing when using the normal method to get into my Google Email address it would take for ever to get in if I was lucky enough because most of the time it would just hang with a blank screen, but since entering all those 127 things into HOME it is quicker than it’s ever been. So I am back to using I E 8 / Google all the time and the adverts only seem to pop up when I visit a couple of websites, which is a lot better than it was. Have you any other idea’s to get rid of the last few ? Anyway thank you with the help you have given already.:beer: Yours
Just landed . PS PIG just logged into MSE to post this and an advert appeared. GRRRR :mad:

Sparhawke

Down at the bottom of the screen when an advert/banner/annoyance is loading it should say something like:

loading somethingjustto!!!!youoff.bannersnoonecaresabout.com

All you do is go back to your hosts file, copy the 127.0.0.1 and paste "bannersnoonecaresabout.com" next to it.

The reason why we don't do the whole thing is that it will specifically look for the subdomain to take out, and forget the actual umbrella site which is still a problem.

It is a lot of messing around trying to get some good results, that post with the links is of course out of date but it starts you off on the right path

Good luck

Marty_J

I'm surprised no one has suggested a scan with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware.

Norton has excellent detection rates, so I wouldn't be in too much of a rush to use AVG instead, especially if you've paid for Norton.

Sparhawke

I don't actually use that program Marty and will not endorse something I have no direct experience of lol

While Norton does come out good in those tests it certainly wasn't the best for many things, it got 50% more false positives than AVG for example...plus it tends to trap you into constantly paying whether you want to or not lol

Anyways, is it not good to give someone a bit of a hint on how to make sure such a malware isn't going to get on through on their own without relying on programs if it only takes a second?