My dad’s computer has been infected with a virus which redirects searches to completely random places. Ted’s spent about twenty hours trying to clean it up, to no avail. In desperation, we turn to the hive mind to see if anybody has suggestions he hasn’t tried. The following is what he *has* tried:
Ok, so the computer has run into js/fake alert and I can’t seem to get rid of it. Have uninstalled and reinstalled completely the browser.
Used Spydoctor, McAfee, and Norton to try and get ride of the problem and still no joy. After reinstall of Firefox the search feature will work for a while and then start back up with random websites keyed to something that I cannot find and will block any attempt to get to antivirus software web pages. I cannot get Norton to update and windows update does not work either (and that is on explorer 8). I have not found anything on the web to guide me in a permanent fix.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
Also I am not convinced that the problem with web page navigation is related to the virus but nothing else is coming up to point me in
another direction.
I know he has also downloaded spyware and virusware updates onto memory sticks from a different computer and installed them, so it’s not just being unable to get to upgrades–the latest thing he can download doesn’t seem to be doing the trick either.
Nor can we tell if possibly Dad’s hitting some site which is reinfecting him, so if anybody has any idea where the virus might be *coming* from, that could be helpful too. :/
Thank you in advance!
You may want to try HijackThis – http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/ . It generates a log file of registry settings, that if you post to a HijackThis forum people should be able to use to debug it for you, and tell you which item delete. Googling for “hijack” and the name of one of the domains your being redirected should find you one with the right people.
We used this method last year to solve similar problems on my husbands machine – one forum he was on had a hack in it that re-installed on his computer every time he visited. Just took paying close attention to figure out which one.
Already tried Spybot Search and Destroy?
http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html
HijackThis is great. You might also try Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware at malwarebytes.org
Use both programs, together they are very effective. Depending on what kind of virus, you may need to download the programs onto a flash drive from a clean com puter then transfer and run on the infected pc. We got a redirect virus last year, and had to go this route. If you have questions, both HijackThis and MalwareBytes have excellent help forums. They do request you only post on one site only, although it doesn’t matter which one.
I’ve used Norton and McAfee, however I was not satisfied with either program. I prefer Avira antivirus for constant protection. I use CCleaner every few days (piriform.com/ccleaner) and then run Spybot and Ad-Aware as needed.
Hope this helps. Lisa
I recommend combining MalwareBytes and SuperAntiSpyware. Running the two usually catches things that others miss (and the two catch things the others miss). I had a similar issue where my virus scanner (Avast), and Spybot and AdAware picked nothing up but I kept getting an odd redirect. Using MalwareBytes and SuperAntiSpyware I was able to fix things.
Once its sorted, I recommend using a combination of programs. I run in the background Spybot S&D with its registry watcher, Avast (which I love!), and SuperAntiSpyware. Then, every so often I run Malwarebytes and AdAware.
Keeps me clean from everything.