What the...?

[fatrockstar]

Something happened at some point over this weekend that has made my popup blockers useless. I will get random popups at random times from companies unrelated to whatever is on my screen. There's a very good chance that Facebook is the culprit. There was a quiz that didn't work properly on there, and when I navigated away from it that's when my problems began. As a result, I can't see my Facebook home page either, nor can I update my status there.

This irritates me to no end. Plus, it's still too hot to think straight. AND I just want Facebook to work and the popups to stop.

Recommendations for a free popup blocker, registry scanner, or virus protection that won't expire in 30 days are needed. I am running eTrust AntiVirus and have also run Search & Destroy, but neither have made a change in my situation.

Comments

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

fwiw, I use Google's pop up blocker - seems to do the job - it's a feature of the Google toolbar...

[winifred.livejournal.com]

I had the one in Google Pack, which is probably the same one from Google toolbar -- I ran that and it made much more progress than any of the others did.

[pelgar.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me like you have spyware or a virus.

#0 How many processes are running? Hit ctrl+alt+del and click Processes. Screencap and post, or post the list of processes running. It will help identify any viruses.

#1 download AVG AntiVirus - not the greatest in the world, but free and catches most things. Don't sweat things that come up as "heur" style viruses with them - those are most likely 'false positives.'

#2 download AdAware

[winifred.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions -- I'll have to check those two programs out.

I have three users on my machine, making the task manager more than full. From my research the scariest thing in there is lsass.exe, but it's been there a year and one of the Windows Updates neutralized it. Everything else is an update monitor for programs I am aware of.

If only svchost was more specific! I have anywhere from three to seven of these running at one time.

[pelgar.livejournal.com]

I cannot recommend Norton Ghost any more highly.
In fact, were I high, I'd still recommend it.

Any time you want, you are a mere 5 minutes away from a clean installation of Windows.

And stop taking Facebook Quizzes. (http://www.cio.com/article/492617/Facebook_Quizzes_Beware_the_Hidden_Dangers) There be dirty things happening in those quizzes.

[mischief-wa.livejournal.com]

Pelgar is the man. =D

[sigil.livejournal.com]

Definitely sounds to me like a virus or some serious malware. Once it gets in there, it can be a real pain in the ass to get it out.

I'd try booting into safe mode and then running your Av software and Spyware before trying anything more extreme.

[winifred.livejournal.com]

Ah, safe mode scan -- I haven't tried that yet.

[winifred.livejournal.com]

Running Search & Destroy in Safe Mode found four trojans and an unauthorized registry key change. Holy shit.

Maybe that's the end of that (knock on wood).