MY sister's PC is screwed

[Urzu 7]

What is this google redirect virus? I might have encountered it last night.

I was looking up something on google image search, and clicked on a link. Then I got a message saying that I was at risk for a virus. It said something about Windows Defender on the message window. So I selected okay and then it pretended to check for viruses. I started to think things were sketchy. As it pretended to scan for viruses using Windows Defender, it came up with false detection. It then presented a window asking if you'd like to take action on the "infections". As soon as I selected it, I got a virus warning from Avast!, but it said the malicious malware URL was blocked. I then did a full system scan and it came up with zero infections. So I lucked out.

Is that the google redirect virus?

[liquidmetal]

Just sounds like any old google redirect virus. AFAIK its not one virus, they just share the same characteristics of getting you to click on a malicious website.

Any suspicious behaviour I just close down my browser and start again, especially if the alerts are not coming from my own anti virus.

Btw Malwarebytes is great as an on-demand scanner. As people have said its one of the most reliable ways to remove viruses and normally its recommended as the first thing to turn to, just like here

[-KarumA-]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

What is this google redirect virus? I might have encountered it last night.

I was looking up something on google image search, and clicked on a link. Then I got a message saying that I was at risk for a virus. It said something about Windows Defender on the message window. So I selected okay and then it pretended to check for viruses. I started to think things were sketchy. As it pretended to scan for viruses using Windows Defender, it came up with false detection. It then presented a window asking if you'd like to take action on the "infections". As soon as I selected it, I got a virus warning from Avast!, but it said the malicious malware URL was blocked. I then did a full system scan and it came up with zero infections. So I lucked out.

Is that the google redirect virus?

The one I had was that when I looked for something on google and pressed a result I would be redirected to some add site instead of the website google listed. When pressing back and trying again it would work.

That might be the old one, it wasn't hard to remove it though. So this might be the new one.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Is that the google redirect virus?

No, it's probably the Antivirus 2010 scam or a more recent derivative. It has been known to interfere with legitimate scanners like Avast so they return false negatives. Scan with malwarebytes just to make sure.

The best way to immunize your PC against future virus threats is here.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

No, it's probably the Antivirus 2010 scam or a more recent derivative. It has been known to interfere with legitimate scanners like Avast so they return false negatives. Scan with malwarebytes just to make sure.

The best way to immunize your PC against future virus threats is here.

Does Ubuntu run ALL Microsoft games?

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Does Ubuntu run ALL Microsoft games?

Do all Windows users play the kinds of games you're probably talking about? The most popular games on Windows are things like Solitaire. Angry Birds is pretty popular these days, too. That runs in WINE. My daughter is a college freshman at a well-respected womens' college. She's one of the few people on her entire floor that play video games at all, and certainly one of the very few who plays things like Dragon Age: Origins on a PC.

I'm really tired of this recurring "reason" for not using Linux. Your type of gamer makes up a rather small minority among all PC users, and probably even here at AS they're unlikely to constitute a majority of Windows users. In fact a majority of PC users report (source below) not playing games on their computers at all. Most evidence I've seen suggests, in fact, that console gaming continues to grow and erode the share of gaming done on PCs. That's not a surprise to me at all. Most people want to put a disk into a gaming device and just start playing. They don't spend their time thinking about overclocking, frame rates, and the "best" video card this week.

How many hours per year does the average Windows user spend worrying about viruses and futzing with their computers as a result? I know a number of people who've spent hundreds of dollars having their computers cleaned repeatedly at places like BestBuy or Staples. They're easily tricked by things like Antivirus 2010 and incapable of fixing the problem once it's gotten its tentacles into their registries. Suggesting that the vast bulk of computer users would be better off staying in Windows and dealing with this crap because Linux doesn't play Call of Duty 2 is ludicrous.

Edit: You might find some of these results surprising, especially the finding that younger people choose consoles over PCs more often than older gamers. Oh, and the most avid computer gamers, in terms of frequency of play, are over 65. Wonder what games they're playing.

[Guernsey]

Have you guys ever heard of Windows Repair? Is it a malware virus?

[SeijiSensei]

Here you go: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/viru...windows-repair. Good luck with that!

Out of curiosity, Guernsey, what kinds of games does your sister play? Does she play them on this computer? How important does she consider gaming on her PC to be?

[Guernsey]

^ She is not a gamer sadly.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Do all Windows users play the kinds of games you're probably talking about? The most popular games on Windows are things like Solitaire. Angry Birds is pretty popular these days, too. That runs in WINE. My daughter is a college freshman at a well-respected womens' college. She's one of the few people on her entire floor that play video games at all, and certainly one of the very few who plays things like Dragon Age: Origins on a PC.

I'm really tired of this recurring "reason" for not using Linux. Your type of gamer makes up a rather small minority among all PC users, and probably even here at AS they're unlikely to constitute a majority of Windows users. In fact a majority of PC users report (source below) not playing games on their computers at all. Most evidence I've seen suggests, in fact, that console gaming continues to grow and erode the share of gaming done on PCs. That's not a surprise to me at all. Most people want to put a disk into a gaming device and just start playing. They don't spend their time thinking about overclocking, frame rates, and the "best" video card this week.

How many hours per year does the average Windows user spend worrying about viruses and futzing with their computers as a result? I know a number of people who've spent hundreds of dollars having their computers cleaned repeatedly at places like BestBuy or Staples. They're easily tricked by things like Antivirus 2010 and incapable of fixing the problem once it's gotten its tentacles into their registries. Suggesting that the vast bulk of computer users would be better off staying in Windows and dealing with this crap because Linux doesn't play Call of Duty 2 is ludicrous.

Edit: You might find some of these results surprising, especially the finding that younger people choose consoles over PCs more often than older gamers. Oh, and the most avid computer gamers, in terms of frequency of play, are over 65. Wonder what games they're playing.

Compatibility could be a problem with Wine, but Crossover Games might have slightly better compatibility and performance if you want to run Windows games on Linux... and it should be affordable.

I like Linux, but many of the programs aren't made specifically for Linux, namely Microsoft Office and Photoshop. There are alternatives, but compatibility may vary with the formats. For games, I kind of wish that Valve made Steam available on Linux like they did with Steam on Mac. I suppose the popularity of the operating system has to do with this...

My solution is to just leave Windows for games and do everything else on Linux. If you need to use Office, just install it with WINE. The insecurities of Windows are kind of troubling... which is the main reason why I hardly use Windows anymore except for Windows-only games.

[White Manju Bun]

ok FINALLY got the nasty stuff off by running a Rootkit cleaner from Kaspersky. Been typing in google links all morning and have yet to be redirected.

Footnote about bleepingcomputer, theyre REALLY behind with answering threads (and they say that and apologize) since theyre literally getting swamped with redirect threads, I made mine very earlier yesterday morning and still no one answered it. Thankfully found Kaspersky and got rid of it. Not saying dont make a thread there just saying you might not get an answer right away

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Guernsey

^ She is not a gamer sadly.

My point exactly. Maybe she doesn't need Windows at all.

Originally Posted by chikorita157

I like Linux, but many of the programs aren't made specifically for Linux, namely Microsoft Office and Photoshop.

There's been a lot of movement on these fronts in the past couple of years, powered in part by regulators in the European Union.

There's little need for MS Office these days outside of business environments with a substantial investment in home-brew applications like spreadsheets with Visual Basic macros and the like. Most ordinary people would be fine with LibreOffice (the fork of OpenOffice which occurred after Oracle purchased Sun) or even the KOffice suite that is native to KDE-based Linux distributions. The most recent versions of LibreOffice have native support for proprietary MS formats like .docx despite the objections of the "M$ is teh evil" crowd. MS Office 2003 and later support .odt and .ods natively to keep the EU off Microsoft's back. With 2003 and 2007 without SP2 you need a plugin; in Office 2007 SP2 and later the support is built-in. For distribution of documents, I tell people to export to PDF, which OO/LO support by default.

Most people here can't afford Photoshop. I assume we're talking about legitimate copies, not pirated versions, right, to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison? Unless you're a graphics professional needing professional tools like Pantone® support, the GIMP is a fine alternative. I'd prefer to see aspiring 14-year-old designers start with GIMP instead of installing an illegal copy of Photoshop because someone tells them "everyone does that." Like many of the best open-sourced programs, GIMP and the competing office suites have releases for Windows as well as Linux.

chikorita's other point is an important one. You don't need to abandon Windows to use Linux; the two can co-exist side-by-side on your machine in a "dual-boot" environment. Use Windows when you need to, preferably in off-line settings like gaming, and use Linux for everything else. (I actually have Win7 available in a VirtualBox VM because I use Microsoft Access from time to time. VMs aren't good for gaming, but they're excellent for most other occasional Windows needs. Also if you take a snapshot of the VM once you've gotten it configured to your liking, you can blow away any later version if it gets infected with something and revert back to your clean copy. Rather like System Restore on steroids.)

[Guernsey]

I started to do somehting now but I don't know if I can do hijackthis log, I don't want too many prgorams installed on the computer for one virus especially when it has ESET (even if we lost the password and couldn't properly update it). I'll put this Resigtry that I copied from Bleeding Computer and assume that is the case:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Run "<random>.exe"
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Run "<random>"
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Internet Settings "CertificateRevocation" = '0'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Internet Settings "WarnonBadCertRecving" = '0'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop "NoChangingWallPaper" = '1'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Associations "LowRiskFileTypes" = '/{hq:/s`s:/ogn:/uyu:/dyd:/c`u:/bnl:/ble:/sdf:/lrh:/iul:/iulm:/fhg:/clq:/kqf:/`wh:/lqf:/lqdf:/lnw:/lq2:/l2t:/v`w:/rbs:'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Attachments "SaveZoneInformation" = '1'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\System "DisableTaskMgr" = '1'
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\policies\system "DisableTaskMgr" = '1'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Download "CheckExeSignatures" = 'no'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main "Use FormSuggest" = 'yes'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Advanced "Hidden" = '0'
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Advanced "ShowSuperHidden" = 0'

[-KarumA-]

Lets stay on topic, this thread was not started to discus yet again.. Linux *sigh*

Also do not copy other people's logs. Yours might be different and that segment listed is just a small part of a log.
Download Hijack this, which is for free and do a scan+log, then just copy paste what is opened in the notepad.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

Lets stay on topic, this thread was not started to discus yet again.. Linux *sigh*

I'll just say that Linux is a possible long-term solution to his sister's problem. Fixing Windows isn't always the best solution to problems with Windows.

I'm done with this thread now.

[Guernsey]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

Lets stay on topic, this thread was not started to discus yet again.. Linux *sigh*

Also do not copy other people's logs. Yours might be different and that segment listed is just a small part of a log.
Download Hijack this, which is for free and do a scan+log, then just copy paste what is opened in the notepad.

You are right, I just don't want to download too many programs epsecially since our computers have ESET (even if it hasn't been updated) is on our computers.

[Urzu 7]

Originally Posted by White Manju Bun

ok FINALLY got the nasty stuff off by running a Rootkit cleaner from Kaspersky. Been typing in google links all morning and have yet to be redirected.

Footnote about bleepingcomputer, theyre REALLY behind with answering threads (and they say that and apologize) since theyre literally getting swamped with redirect threads, I made mine very earlier yesterday morning and still no one answered it. Thankfully found Kaspersky and got rid of it. Not saying dont make a thread there just saying you might not get an answer right away

I don't know if I have a virus, but some search results on google image search have me encountering the problem I detailed in another post in this thread. Would I need a rootkit cleaner? I'd like to know how I can use google image search without running into this problem like I have been. The first time I got a virus warning. It said malicious URL was blocked. The other times it started, I would just close the browser using task manager.

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

No, it's probably the Antivirus 2010 scam or a more recent derivative. It has been known to interfere with legitimate scanners like Avast so they return false negatives. Scan with malwarebytes just to make sure.

The best way to immunize your PC against future virus threats is here.

SeijiSensei recommended a MWB scan, which is in progress as I type this message.

SeijiSensei (or whomever wants to answer this), I had done a full scan with Avast! as soon as I got that warning about a malicious URL being blocked. That was two days ago, and it came up clean. I opened MWB and updated it and am now performing a full scan. If that comes up clean, should I not worry about it?

Kepersky is the best anti-virus software right now, eh? Should I stick with Avast!, or would it really be that much of a better decision to go with Kepersky. I'd be willing to pay the money if the protection is that much better.

I don't want to fuel on this Windows vs. other OSes argument, but I don't want Kubuntu at the moment, as I just recently got into PC gaming and I do like it. Also, no one likes viruses and having to reformat a hard drive if it comes to that, but I do periodically back up information that is important to me.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Do all Windows users play the kinds of games you're probably talking about? The most popular games on Windows are things like Solitaire. Angry Birds is pretty popular these days, too. That runs in WINE. My daughter is a college freshman at a well-respected womens' college. She's one of the few people on her entire floor that play video games at all, and certainly one of the very few who plays things like Dragon Age: Origins on a PC.

I'm really tired of this recurring "reason" for not using Linux. Your type of gamer makes up a rather small minority among all PC users, and probably even here at AS they're unlikely to constitute a majority of Windows users. In fact a majority of PC users report (source below) not playing games on their computers at all. Most evidence I've seen suggests, in fact, that console gaming continues to grow and erode the share of gaming done on PCs. That's not a surprise to me at all. Most people want to put a disk into a gaming device and just start playing. They don't spend their time thinking about overclocking, frame rates, and the "best" video card this week.

How many hours per year does the average Windows user spend worrying about viruses and futzing with their computers as a result? I know a number of people who've spent hundreds of dollars having their computers cleaned repeatedly at places like BestBuy or Staples. They're easily tricked by things like Antivirus 2010 and incapable of fixing the problem once it's gotten its tentacles into their registries. Suggesting that the vast bulk of computer users would be better off staying in Windows and dealing with this crap because Linux doesn't play Call of Duty 2 is ludicrous.

Edit: You might find some of these results surprising, especially the finding that younger people choose consoles over PCs more often than older gamers. Oh, and the most avid computer gamers, in terms of frequency of play, are over 65. Wonder what games they're playing.

There are people who play online games and are sick of Freeware OSes not supporting it - thus why Microsoft still practically own the PC market through their OS (I am not going into where they are spending their money on R&D). For one, I play SC2 online every now and then, along with a few other games with online capabilities.

I am not a casual gamer, but neither do I have the cash to buy a PS3 right now. But to play a third person game or RPG, a console is the way to go, not the PC.

Hence I don't use Ubuntu because my computer is not just for entertainment value - it is for doing stuff like coding too. I'll think of all the virii I get as learning experiences.

[blaze0041]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

SeijiSensei recommended a MWB scan, which is in progress as I type this message.

SeijiSensei (or whomever wants to answer this), I had done a full scan with Avast! as soon as I got that warning about a malicious URL being blocked. That was two days ago, and it came up clean. I opened MWB and updated it and am now performing a full scan. If that comes up clean, should I not worry about it?

Kepersky is the best anti-virus software right now, eh? Should I stick with Avast!, or would it really be that much of a better decision to go with Kepersky. I'd be willing to pay the money if the protection is that much better.

By default, Avast will automatically terminate connection to any site that is deemed infected (it's saved my ass a few times). I think it should be fine. I set my Heuristics sensitivity to be High just to be sure.
Always try before you buy in regards to anti-viruses (Avast Free is still good enough for me at the moment).

[Urzu 7]

Originally Posted by blaze0041

By default, Avast will automatically terminate connection to any site that is deemed infected (it's saved my ass a few times). I think it should be fine. I set my Heuristics sensitivity to be High just to be sure.
Always try before you buy in regards to anti-viruses (Avast Free is still good enough for me at the moment).

How can I set my Heuristics sensitivity to high? That is something for Avast that allows it to block more sites, right? Ones potentially dangerous? Please tell me how to access those settings.