I recently cleaned a friends laptop. Her browser was opening up to suspicious and “adult” sites . I thought I would run a couple of spyware program and that would be the end of it. It wasn’t. It was a really tough case.

She also had a problem that I had seen before; any kind of java script was hijacked and instead of a Google AdSense Ad or other there was a flashing obnoxious ad demanding a virus scan of some sort. Do you have malware or spyware of some kind on your computer?

Symptoms That You Have Malware ( Trojan, Spyware, etc)

– browser is opening up on its own.
– Strange looking Ads that blink or ask you to do a virus check NOW.
– Home page in browser has changed and/or you can’t change your home page-
– When doing a search in Google or browser new browser open up using related terms and to a suspicious site.
– Popups asking you to do a virus or spyware scan
– Getting popups to anti-virus site with odd names- like PantiVirus or MacAfffe ( similar to real program but with misspellings)
– General performance problems like slow Internet, sluggish program, hard to load applications.
Adsense does not run any animated ads so if your AdSense ads are blinking or flashing or animated then you most likely have some kind of trojan or malware that has hijacked you java script.
– weird messages when you try and open your spyware removal applications or they won’t open at all.
– New and “interesting” sites in your Bookmarks and Favorites.

Example of How Spyware Gets Installed

Below is what a typical window that will install spyware :

In any case I spent a lot time trying to get rid of her malware. Not only was she getting weird popups and her browser opening spontaneously, but the Internet connection slowed to a halt. You could surf for about 2 minutes and then problem would be back. I ran just about everything I could think of and still couldn’t get rind of the problem. I ran multiple virus scans, Lavasoft’sAdaware, Trend Micro, about 4 different Trojan removal software, etc. and nothing worked.

Finally…. Getting Rid of Hard to Clean Malware

I was very close to calling it a day and reformatting her hard drive. I did some more searches and found a step by step method of getting rid of these nasty malware programs, on Major Geeks Forum. It tools some time but in about an hour her laptop was clean.

The procedure for getting rid of all the malware- a nasty trojan, was done using entirely free tools and the instruction were superb .They also had download links to for everything you need.

I cannot recommend this thread highly enough.

The application that did the trick on this computer and several other’s was little known malware seek and destroy application Malwarebytes It is also free.

I was operating Windows Xp but they had methods for most operating systems.
View the Major Geeks Malware Removal Instructions
A word of caution- don’t skip around and jump ahead – stick to their instrcutions.