Greetings, beckmccall!
It sounds as though someone who uses your computer has inadvertently
downloaded a "Scumware" application. People who encounter this sort of
problem often post requests for assistance in public user forums, so I
took a look in Google Groups ( http://groups.google.com ) to see if
anyone had reported a similar problem, and if a solution had been
determined.
A search on "search4u" reveals the following entry by "Wendy" in the
24hoursupport.helpdesk forum:
"My dope of a boyfriend decided to surf the net for the first time and
has left me with allsorts of pop-ups, etc which I can't get rid of!
I've cleared the temporary files, history, and cookies through
internet options and I've done a full scan with my anti-virus and
Ad-aware software. I've even got Pop-Up Stopper enabled but I'm still
getting 3 or 4 pop-up ads every few minutes. Download boxes keep
appearing when I haven't even clicked on anything and a toolbar had
installed itself within IE which had 'Search4U.com' on it. The most
regular ads are for Search-Feed.com and SearchEasy.
Has anybody else had this problem and if so how can I get rid of
them?"
http://groups.google.com/groups?&threadm=U3r4a.583%24zG2.91467%40newsfep2-win.server.ntli.net&rnum=1
If you read through through the 8 responses to this post, you will
find that:
- poster "Mike" recommends the use of Spybot Search & Destroy
scumware-busting software ( http://security.kolla.de ) (Good Advice)
- poster "James" recommends;
"Go to www.mozilla.org, and try out a superior browser. You can
configure it to deny pop ups." (also Good Advice, although not all
websites are configured to work properly with Mozilla, which doesn't
take any crap from websites which try to take over your computer or do
sneaky snooping on it.)
- "Wendy" reports that the culprit was "C2.lop". You may want to do a
file search on your computer to see if this file exists.
I believe that installing and running Spybot will help you to resolve
your problem (I myself, and many other Researchers, use Spybot to
combat adware and scumware). *** Be sure to read the instructions for
Spybot carefully, and delete only those items which you are sure you
want to delete. *** I recommend making a full backup of your system
before deleting program elements through Spybot, in case you
mistakenly delete an important file.
Search Strategy
search4u
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=search4u&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search
Before Rating my Answer, if you have any questions about this
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will be
glad to see what I can do for you.
Best Wishes on getting your computer clean and running smoothly again!
Regards,
aceresearcher |
Clarification of Answer by
aceresearcher-ga
on
01 May 2003 13:01 PDT
Hello again, beckmccall!
Spybot just released their newest version on Monday (April 28), and it
includes fixes for the following:
"2003-04-28
Hijacker
++ 17plus
++ CnsMin.EasyService
++ EZ-Searching
++ HotAndSexy
++ GlobalWebSearch
++ Grokster.Mayan
++ SexOcean
++ SuperSpider
++ TopSearcher
++ Unknown + I-Lookup + RapidBlaster
+ SexArena + ShopNav + SubSearch"
You can either download and install the new version:
Spybot Search & Destroy 1.2
(donorware - free, but you can donate if you wish)
http://security.kolla.de/index.php?lang=en&page=download
or, if you have already installed an earlier version of Spybot, start
it up and click "Search for Updates" (I think that this option is much
easier and quicker).
I hope that this additional information will prove useful to you!
Regards,
aceresearcher
|
