Pop-up Problems

[Darth007]

Somehow my computer managed to rarely get popups in the past few years, but just until this week I get bombarded with them. I come home from school and have to reboot my computer just because there are so many. I'm running Firebird and have it set as my default browser, but these pop-ups come from IE. Ive also experimented with a few of the top rated pop up blockers at downloads.com. Any one know a cure?

edit: I have had Ad-Aware 6.0 and Spybot, and run them regularly, still doesnt fix the problem |I

[Morgan Evanar]

www.ad-aware.com
http://security.kolla.de/

[Figrin D'an]

http://www.theeldergeek.com/messenger_service_popups.htm

Done this yet?

[Darth007]

Did what it said, and Messenger is already stopped and disabled. The pop ups are all mainly "click here to stop pop ups NOW" in a big stop sign with bright colors. All the other stuff I've seemed to stop. :(

[Figrin D'an]

You've got some kind of trojan on your system. Run a virus scan with updated definitions, and see what kind of results you get.

[Darth007]

Pff, what nice help that was. I spent about an hour scanning my entire system(all 65,000 files) with a program I downloaded to check for infected files, viruses, and spyware. It tells me I have 63 infected files/possible spyware!

:D <---- me thinking I'm about to solve the problem

I click on a button to "cure" the files and it predictably brings me to the website to sign up for a $30 membership.

:mad <------ me now

[spada]

I used spyblaster search and destroy and it has worked pretty good. As for popups I have google popup blocker and its great it also stops popups that arent virus related :)

[Marcus Telcontar]

Darth007 - Please use AVG - you will find it is a trojan causing the issue

[Hart]

Try using a program called PopThis. It won't remove any adware, but it keeps them all from actually popping up.

[imported_Grev Drasen]

Originally posted by Hart
Try using a program called PopThis. It won't remove any adware, but it keeps them all from actually popping up.
It'd be best if he got it completely removed rather than just block it out.

[Darth007]

thanks by the way for everyones input i didn't think anyone would care

update: installed AVG 6.0 cleaned out the trojans and stuff, got PopThis but I'm still getting popups(I read that it self installs into IE, but I'm not running IE so that could be why)

[Marcus Telcontar]

Ahhhh. Connect Teh web it smells like. Yes, there is a trojan that does that. I'd go a googling and see what you can find. Plus, get your firewall on.

[imported_Grev Drasen]

That sucks. I don't know what good it will do but you could try RegCleaner and see how much good cleaning out your registry will do. Probably nothing, if you can afford losing your stuff just reinstall your OS.

[Darth007]

when im on the computer its not bad because i get one maybe every 10 minutes and i can close it... but overnight or during school they just build up and its irritating, and i always keep the computer with AIM on in case people gotta get in touch with me or whatever. I dont think my computer has a firewall. I've never seen or touched anything to do with them but then again I know little about firewalls so maybe there is one and I dont know it.

Bah, so many computer problems in this one month alone. At least I have a job now and maybe I can just save up for a new, better one.

[Figrin D'an]

There's a good trojan removal tool called The Cleaner. I think it will remove this particular annoyance as well. It's got a 30 day free trial.

http://www.moosoft.com/products/cleaner/download/

[Marcus Telcontar]

The other thing to do is that these trojans usually have a prosess going. I'm a wee bit hesitant to say how to remove startup services in the registry in XP - but if you have 98, use msconfig and post what startup process are there.

[Darth007]

nah XP

Got "The Cleaner" and I don't understand how it works... I have "TCMonitor" running in my tray, and I'm stilll getting pop-ups.

[Figrin D'an]

You have to actually scan your system. The monitor isn't going to do any good if the trojan is already on your machine.


I'm kind of surprised Ad-Aware or Spybot didn't pick this up, because you said you have both.

[Darth007]

oh... well I scanned for trojans with several programs and I'm pretty sure I got rid of them all. But the pop-ups still come so its not that. Oh well.

[Figrin D'an]

Have you made sure to download the most recent reference files for Ad-Aware and Spybot?

And try actually scanning with The Cleaner... it may pick something up that anti-virus software will not.

[Darth007]

Yes, to both

[Figrin D'an]

What "pop-up blockers" have you tried? Because some of them actually generate pop-ups of their own.

To be honest, I'd start by uninstalled any pop-up blocking software you have on your system. If you use other tools, you don't need a seperate pop-up blocking program.

[Darth007]

Only programs left are Ad-Aware 6.0 and AVG.

[Figrin D'an]

Then you may have to clean out your registry.

And get a software firewall, at minimum. ZoneAlarm, Black Ice Defender... something that has a good program control system.

[Ace McCloud]

Yea well I have a script problem. Every 2 hours I will get an IE Popup that covers the whole screen. Zone alarm wont let it have access but it still comes up. I don't think its a trojan as I caught two the other day and I've had this problem for about a month now.

[Darth007]

same with me Ace

[Figrin D'an]

Try searching Microsoft's Knowledge Base, and see if you can find a description that fits your problem. Because, beyond the universal fixes discussed here, there's isn't a lot we can do unless you can identify the exact cause of the pop-up screen.

[Darth007]

Yeah, actually to be honest they've calmed down today. Thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate the help. :)

[Ace McCloud]

The only I problem I have is that IE pop ups once every 2 hours. Like I said earlier, I use Zone alarm to stop it from connecting, but it doesnt stop it from coming up. But when I close zone alarm, one of those IE pop ups will give me 30+ popups in an hour. Damn ie!

[Darth007]

yeah, thanks to whoever gave that early heads up on switchin to Mozilla in that thread a while back

[Figrin D'an]

Originally posted by Ace McCloud
The only I problem I have is that IE pop ups once every 2 hours. Like I said earlier, I use Zone alarm to stop it from connecting, but it doesnt stop it from coming up. But when I close zone alarm, one of those IE pop ups will give me 30+ popups in an hour. Damn ie!

There is something on your system that is causing IE to do that. It's not IE proper. Dump your cache, and especially any cookies, out of IE.


If you have the time, I'd like to see a screenshot or two of what exactly is happening.

[Marcus Telcontar]

I'd be more interested in startup services. Whatever is causing it is going to be active and viewable in there. msconfig will show them - Start / Run - MSCONFIG. Go to the startup tag and screen shot that pls. I havent tried MSCONFIG on a W2K PC, but I know it works on 98 / ME and XP.

[Figrin D'an]

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/


This is a pretty good list of potential processes (viewable in the task manager) and what exactly they are. Cross reference it with your own background tasks. You might find something suspicious.

[Ace McCloud]

Originally posted by Marcus Elessar
I'd be more interested in startup services. Whatever is causing it is going to be active and viewable in there. msconfig will show them - Start / Run - MSCONFIG. Go to the startup tag and screen shot that pls. I havent tried MSCONFIG on a W2K PC, but I know it works on 98 / ME and XP.

Alright, I got 4 screen shots of my start up in msconfig and one screen shot of the pop up that accures. I know in the start up, there are some questionable things. I haven't looked in there in a good long time.

www.lonetco.com/fus/AceSigs/Popup.jpg
www.lonetco.com/fus/AceSigs/startup1.jpg
www.lonetco.com/fus/AceSigs/startup2.jpg
www.lonetco.com/fus/AceSigs/startup3.jpg
www.lonetco.com/fus/AceSigs/startup4.jpg

Notice how in the popup, everything on the screen is engulfed, including the startmenu and taskbar.



http://www.liutilities.com/products...processlibrary/


This is a pretty good list of potential processes (viewable in the task manager) and what exactly they are. Cross reference it with your own background tasks. You might find something suspicious.

Finding lots of things actually. Thanks a bunch.

[Marcus Telcontar]

P2P NETWORKING!!

I'm really surprised Adaware didnt smite that crap off the planet

Deselect


Deselect Autopop

Internefeatures. Deselect
IEFeatures????? Deselect

[Ace McCloud]

Right, I wasn't sure what P2P Networking is, I always block it with zone alarm though. Thanks alot Marcus, Fig. Hopefully this should solve my problem.

[Figrin D'an]

There's a whole lot of crap you can remove from that startup list. 95% of things that get put in there just suck up system resources and aren't that useful (or, as you have seen, can be annoying or malicious).

[Darth007]

hmm, my startup has gotten considerably longer/slower lately, and i'm sure there's some spyware in here....

(btw you'll notice I didnt scroll all the way down, its because everything underneath is old programs I used to have but are now unchecked)

[Darth007]

eh.. guess you can only have one attachment per post.

[Darth007]

last one

[Figrin D'an]

Belt.exe is spyware.

And most of the "C:\Program Files\" stuff doesn't need to load at startup. It just sucks system resources.

Leave what you feel is critical (firewall, peripherals like mouse, antivirus), and uncheck the rest.

For purposes of comparision, I only have 8 checked items under the Startup tab. Unless you need it to run on boot, like a few of the things I mentioned, you don't need it checked.

[Darth007]

Alright thank you. I've never seen that startup list ever until you guys told me how to get to it, and I've always been trying to figure out a way to minimize the amount of things being loaded up at startup because it literally takes 5 minutes for my computer to settle down before I can start doing anything.

Only problem now is that I dont know what half of those processes are, and which are vital?

[Ace McCloud]

Hey thanks a ton guys, that fixed my problem. If theres anything I can do for ya, just ask ;)

[Darth007]

ditto what he said

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

i just ran the cleaner and spybot myself

6 trojans and 338 spyware registries, files, etc etc :x



and fig, that stupid file is back -_-

[Figrin D'an]

Originally posted by s'Ilancy
and fig, that stupid file is back -_-


'k. There is another potential solution, but it will require some detective work. We'll chat later or something.

[Morgan Evanar]

http://panic.hopto.org/misc/startup.png
That is what a startup option should look like, maybe without Trillian or Style XP. I like them, though.