Need Serious Help Gettng Rid Of Adware

[Renathy]

The other day, my mom needed to get on my computer to do something she supposedly couldn't do on her tablet. Through the years, I have taught her a few tips on how to navigate the internet without getting riddled with virus, but the days before I let her on my computer, she got some sort of virus on her tablet, from those pop-up websites, and she decided it was a good idea to browse through it for whatever reason.

 

I let her on the computer, and then I went to sleep. I wake up the following day just to find out my computer now has annoying adware. I talked to her, and she tries to blame it on me, like any other parent. "It's probably your game." You know, those stupid excuses. After blaming me, she told me she plugged in her tablet onto my computer, to which my uncle denies the possibility. She also didn't install anything, so I have no clue. She didn't really tell me much.

 

At first, I tried doing a system restore, but I had no existing restore points, thanks to my obsessive computer maintenance. I like keeping it clean, and when I need a restore point, I usually create one, before I do something I don't know about. - At this point, my only solution is my anti-virus. It's always turned off, because I know what I'm doing, and I thought my mother would too. I scan my system with my anti-virus, Avast, but to no avail.

 

I start looking up guides, telling me to install this and that, and I am truly desperate enough to install them, just to get rid of this god awful adware. Malwarebytes; AdwCleaner; Ad-Aware; among others. None managed to destroy this menace. One program, Trojan Killer, to be specific, even asked me to buy their products, even though it had a few results, so that didn't help at all either, since it wouldn't allow me to continue with the cleaning process.

 

My FireFox browser is awfully sluggish now, since it opens about 4 to 8 ads a page everywhere on my screen, plus a few pop-ups, but gladly I have ad-block, which helps a bit. I also noticed the ads had an options menu, which lead me to this website called lightquartrate. It allows me to disable the ads for each single website, so, basically, I have to do it for each website I visit, if I really want to disable them, TEMPORARILY. - As an attempt of desperation, I even e-mailed said company, and they replied to my e-mail with an automatic response, stating that I have probably installed something, and it would be an easy uninstall, but adware is not as simple as that, I told them, and they haven't bothered to reply ever again.

 

TL;DR: Computer infected with adware. No system restore points available; Cannot get rid of it, regardless of what program I use.

Edited April 4, 2015 by JRMC

[Zagrax]

Pick up a free trial of e-set nod 32 antivirus and do a full scan with it.

 

If that fails, if you don't want to go through a lengthy diagnosis and troubleshooting process, save yourself some trouble and reformat the machine.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Zagrax

[TrinityPrime]

Restart your computer and hold down f8 or something to get the boot menu to boot into safe mode.  From there lookup and uninstall the background programs running the adware and the associated program they came bundled with just to be safe (I usually just delete their program directories first to make the process faster).  Then you can remove the extension or addons in your browser that actually spawns their ads on any site you visit.

 

Double check your task scheduler and make sure its not running odd tasks.  Maybe Windows Key + r and run msconfig to check what start up services and programs are running to see if anything odd is in there.

 

Be sure to reset your browser's homepage and default search engine.

Edited April 4, 2015 by KnotOfMetal

[ntyd1s]

Try combofix (freeware) or adwcleaner

[Sixty5]

Pick up a free trial of e-set nod 32 antivirus and do a full scan with it.

Don't bother with nod 32, get the trial of the full version

http://www.eset.com/us/home/products/smart-security/

 

Malwarebytes typically also works pretty well with scans

 

I would recommend enabling the built in admin account

Open up command prompt as an administrator (right click)

and enter 

net user administrator /active yes

 

it should look something like this

 

to disable the admin account just re-enter the same command with no instead of yes.

 

Next, restart your PC in safe mode (Tap F8 repeatedly on boot), login to the admin account and run your scans.

 

 

Safe mode only loads up the services needed to boot the computer, and should prevent most malware from hiding itself.

Admin login means that any action that you take has increased permissions attached to it, and should override other blocks. 

 

 

Also uninstall anything that looks nasty whist you are still in safe mode.

 

 

Any further questions, just respond here or send me a PM

[TheErebus.]

Don't bother with nod 32, get the trial of the full version

http://www.eset.com/us/home/products/smart-security/

 

Malwarebytes typically also works pretty well with scans

 

I would recommend enabling the built in admin account

Open up command prompt as an administrator (right click)

and enter 

net user administrator /active yes

 

it should look something like this

 

to disable the admin account just re-enter the same command with no instead of yes.

 

Next, restart your PC in safe mode (Tap F8 repeatedly on boot), login to the admin account and run your scans.

 

 

Safe mode only loads up the services needed to boot the computer, and should prevent most malware from hiding itself.

Admin login means that any action that you take has increased permissions attached to it, and should override other blocks. 

 

 

Also uninstall anything that looks nasty whist you are still in safe mode.

 

 

Any further questions, just respond here or send me a PM

^ He is a tech expert. It's his job. Can confirm

So listen to him.

[-Mandachordian-Tenno-]

sorry

http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1938-j

Edited April 4, 2015 by JameSPYder

[Sixty5]

^ He is a tech expert. It's his job. Can confirm

So listen to him.

Indeed.

 

Above post is probably the easiest way to get rid of problems.

 

I would also recommend uninstalling any other antivirus programs you have on your PC before you install ESET. Many antivirus programs clash with each other and slow down the PC further, and in some cases, such as running ESET and McCafee they can cause your PC to stall.

 

Malwarebytes (free version *not the trial*) however has no issues

[p3z1]

sorry

http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1938-j

 

OH LOL

[Shimonoki_Ryuji]

I had a similar issue a couple of times.

 

A program had secretly installed on my PC. That pesky ad kept showing up as my browser's home page every time when i opened the browser. Not that big of a deal, but annoying as hell.

 

It had written itself somewhere in the registry, so i had to do some cleaning in the registry, restart a couple times, uninstall the bastard and it got fixed. Didn't have to use Malwarebytes and safe mode, however. Looks like that malware wasn't so persistent.

 

I just searched for that particuar ad URL and google showed me lots of answers on how to clean it up.

But the post of 65 pretty much should accurately solve the problem ^_____^

[izzatuw]

"It's probably your game."

THIS!!!