kaseytraeger Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 Hi everyone, My brother-in-law has a strange problem on his computer that I've not heard about before. Whenever he opens a new connection to the internet (he's on dial-up), he gets the same pop-up window with a nude woman. Mad!!! I suggested he use Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D. He tried both of those, but the pop-up window keeps coming up. Needless to say, neither my sister (his wife) nor he want this kind of material on their computer, and rightly so. Has anyone had this problem on their computer before? I'm going to suggest that he try Cool Web Shredder, but from what I understand, that program keeps one particular web site from taking over your home page url. So I don't know if it will work on this nudie pop up window. Also, you should know that he uses AO-HE-double hockey sticks, ahem, I mean, AOL. Yuck! Thanks.
Madmanmcp Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 Kasey, yes I have had to fix lots of friends computers with the same symptoms...usually the house has teenage boys who are of course curious. At times it becomes a monstrous task to finally clean the system and 7 out of eight times the problem is back in a week (the kids go back to the same pages). Let me leave work and I'll reply again when I get home, unless someone else beats me too it
Madmanmcp Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 Ok, I'm home. How ironic, I have an email here from a friend asking me to make a return visit to remove the popup I AM A SPAMMER from the computer again. What I usually do is attack these things from all angles and use several programs and methods. I first disconnect the computer from the network if they are connected, or disconnect them from the Internet if they are on DSL or Cable. Next I boot the computer into safe mode and start "cleaning house. I'll run MSCONFIG from the command line and look for any strange things loading in STARTUP and uncheck the boxes (they can be rechecked later if needed). I also check the WIN.INI under LOAD= or RUN= to see if anything is loading there. I then start runing the programs, no specific order just run them all. I use SpyBot, adware, TheCleaner, a virus scanner. Once these are done in Safemode I reboot normal and run them again. IF you are lucky everthing is gone...but thats usually not what happens . I usually run into problems where things are not able to be deleted or removed and I have to dig into my bag of tricks to get them to go away. Files are busy so they can't be deleted...I boot to a floppy disk into DOS and use editors or other programs I have to edit, change, delete or modify these files. I reboot normal and check again. Good luck, I am off to help another friend...
TCH-Thomas Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 Dont forget to check which start page is set in the browser too.
LisaJill Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 I don't usually have any problems with this. I paid for Adwatch and run firefox; so between the combination popups just never get there. Adwatch was definitely money well spent though. =)
TCH-Bruce Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 (edited) If they are running IE download a program called PopThis! Free and install it too. It's a freeware popup stopper. You can find it here. http://www.surfapps.com/products.html Edited April 12, 2004 by TCH-Bruce
Madmanmcp Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 Dont forget to check which start page is set in the browser too. Thanks thats correct...I also forgot to mention running HiJackThis, which may be needed in this case.
kajoiner Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 Kasey, yes I have had to fix lots of friends computers with the same symptoms...usually the house has teenage boys who are of course curious. Madmanmcp is right. He implied that someone was visting I AM A SPAMMER sites on that computer and that is where they are coming from. It is not always I AM A SPAMMER sites, but someone from your brother-in-laws house is visiting sites they should not. If it is your brother-in-law, tell him to run the AdAware and spybot after visiting these sites before rebooting the computer. That should catch most of these before it becomes a problem. If they have kids in the house, I would recommend installing a monitoring software or a software to block those sites.
kaseytraeger Posted April 13, 2004 Author Posted April 13, 2004 Thanks everyone, for your suggestions. I'm emailing this URL to my sister and brother-in-law so they can try to fix it. I think it will be easier for them to read it directly here than getting it through a third party source (me). Thanks again to all of the wonderful TCH family!!!
ThumpAZ Posted April 13, 2004 Posted April 13, 2004 This is one of the most common calls I get... "Why is this website or popup appearing??" More often than not, but NOT always, it is due to cruising pron (mispelling on purpose). Sometimes, though, it is from doing a search for something innocuous, and then clicking a link that looks promising, only to have it be a malware/spyware laden site. Some of the tools that have been sugested here, are not for the novice (Spybot, Hijack This!, Adaware), and you can seriously mess up your machine if you do not know what you are doing. I have helped users on here with Hijack This! logs in the past, and would be happy to take a look at the one gathered from the suspect machine. I even have a verified clean version of all of these softwares quickly available... there was a virus-infected version of Spybot floating around a little while back. Let us know if we can help.
kaseytraeger Posted April 13, 2004 Author Posted April 13, 2004 Glenn, What can I say. This is TCH service above and beyond the call of duty. My brother in law is not even a customer, but your willing to help him out. Wow! I'm sure my brother in law would be very grateful for any help we can give him. Mike (my brother in law) is not a computer guru, so I'll probably walk him through this. Please tell me how to go about harvesting the information from his computer that you need. I'll gather up the info and get it right back to you. My G*d, I can't believe how fantastic our TCH family is. You guys completely rock! (You know this is going to score big brownie points with me, right?!? Thumbs Up I already refer as many people as I can here -- though I think only one has committed to buying a hosting plan. Now I can sing the praises even more. Maybe I can even talk to my sister and her hubby about getting a hosting account here so they can set up their own web site!) Thanks a bunch-a-bunch-a-bunch!
kajoiner Posted April 13, 2004 Posted April 13, 2004 More often than not, but NOT always, it is due to cruising pron (mispelling on purpose). Sometimes, though, it is from doing a search for something innocuous, and then clicking a link that looks promising, only to have it be a malware/spyware laden site. I want to clarify after my last post. I did not mean to say that it had to be "pron" sites that they were visiting. I have had to help many people with this problem as well, some were innocuous, most were not. My wife has this problem all the time, and I know that it is because she knows very little about computers and will click on links that she should not. They dump info on the computer that I have to clean when I get home. I have helped several friends, however, who thought that it was impossible that someone from their house was visiting "pron" sites. After installing a monitoring software (I have a corporate version that is a packet sniffer that costs mega bucks that I let them use for a few weeks to see what is going on) they realize that so things were going on that should not. My prefered method is to monitor, not block, but there is software that will do both that may be worth a look if there are kids in the house.
Madmanmcp Posted April 13, 2004 Posted April 13, 2004 I have to also agree with kajoiner, it is not "always" because of someone visiting these unmentionable sites. But in my experience the majority are for that reason. Now I have two sons age 15 and 18 which means my friends are because of associations with their friends parents so my views are tilted because of these factors. Now I have personally witnessed first hand someone getting caught with these I AM A SPAMMER popups while researching something unrelated to I AM A SPAMMER on a search engine. Yes, it was me and it was actually here at work! I work in an open area (NOC) with three rows lined up with monitors and people sitting beside and in back of me. What can you tell them when every 10 seconds a new IE window pops up with somebody's sister in their birthday suit.
kaseytraeger Posted April 13, 2004 Author Posted April 13, 2004 Now I have personally witnessed first hand someone getting caught with these I AM A SPAMMER popups while researching something unrelated to I AM A SPAMMER on a search engine. Yes, it was me and it was actually here at work! Madmanmcp, I had the same thing happen to me here at work. I don't know what I clicked on, but the next thing I know, I'm greeted with a page full of nude women. Some were top photos, but some were full shots. Not the kind of thing I want on my computer. So far, nobody from the IT department has come to arrest me and take me to jail in the paddy wagon, so hopefully I eeked by on this one. I don't even know how to explain how such a nasty web page would come up on my computer!
Madmanmcp Posted April 13, 2004 Posted April 13, 2004 Kasey, from my experience with them they are just another program running on your computer, either a Java or Active-X program. They are run by simply just visiting a web page and you can usually find them as a button on the start bar or in taskmanager. If you are lucky and quick you can find and kill it and the popups will stop. Now in some cases your browser is "hijacked" and everytime you start it it goes to a new home page that it sets (without your permission) and the popups start all over again.
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