Something strange has happened during my attempts to do a Google search:
First, the google search results page has much bigger font.
Next, if I click on a link it directs me to an “anti-spyware scan” page (don’t want to post the link here) that begins downloading a supposed anti-spyware software. Along the way, it prompts me to accept download. I close the screen before it can be done.
Has anyone else encountered this and, if so, do you know how I can get my google searches back to normal?
It sounds like your machine is infected. I would scan it with Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, it’s a pretty good program, and it’s free.
It’s clear that you have some kind of malware on your computer. Exactly how easy (or difficult) this is to deal with depends to some extent on how well you ‘know’ computers. There are plenty of good, free tools out there that will help you identify what’s going on with your system, but some are easier to understand than others…
One of my favorites is HikackThis, which will give you a very detailed report of the settings that have changed on your machine. The ‘problem’ is that the program does not differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ changes, so you need to know what you are looking for; what changes were made intentionally vs. changes that were made by malware.
Spybot Search and Destroy is another program worth checking out. I haven’t used it in quite a while, but I seem to recall it being a bit more ‘user-friendly’
And it almost, but not quite, goes without saying, you should have a good anti-virus app running. Most of them also have anti-spyware and other features built in to them these days as well. In fact, I would suggest that whatever anti-virus program you are running now, you try downloading and running a different one, since yours obviously didn’t protect you against something. Two very good, and free, apps are AVG and Avast. Try one of them and see if it doesn’t find something that was missed by previous scans.
One word of caution: it’s usually not the best idea to run two different anti-virus programs at the same time, as they tend to ‘step on’ each other. So you would want to uninstall your current program before installing one of these others. If you can’t or don’t want to, do that, give Trend Micro HouseCall a try. It’s a free online virus scan, and you don’t have to install anything (except an ActiveX or Java applet) on your machine.
Good luck! Getting rid of this kind of stuff can be fairly trivial, or a royal pain in the ass, depending on what program you got hit with. The key is identifying exactly what caused the problem; after that, removal becomes a step-by-step process.
HijackThis is the bees knees. Better still, you can paste the log into this page and it will give you a detailed report on each line, with recommendations on each item.
You probably cannot get to any of the links posted, because your computer has been hijacked in such a way that prevents you from accessing any of the popular useful sites/tools for fixing the problem, no matter what browser you use.
If you can’t get to any of the links, please send me a PM and I will send you a link to some of the cleaners I have posted on my web host, which would not be blocked.
This sounds a lot like a virus I have been battling this past year called AntivirusXP2008, or something similar. It parades as a virus cleaner, but is a virus its self. It blocks your way to all the actual virus scanners. It can even block the task manager.
If this is what you are dealing with… good luck! Its a bitch to get rid of.
If your task manager is blocked, do this:
Go to start/run and paste the following
REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
Then open the task manager and on the processes tab look for AntivirusXP2008, or some variation of that. End the process.
Now try running your virus scanners.
I ran AdAware, Spybot, & TrendMicro online scanner over and over. They all found stuff and deleted it, but it kept coming back. It took Malwarebytes Anti Malware to actually finish off this particular virus.
My father got a virus three weeks ago that acted as you described, O2BDumb, and I can pretty defininitely tell you your computer is already infected and will not even be able to access malwarebytes’ website or any other helpful one. Also, I would predict if you try your System Restore you will find it disabled.
I agree with the suggestions given in previous posts. I successfully removed this virus (mine was called Perfect Defender 2009) just in the last few days. Trouble is, I would never have been savvy enough to put the previous posts’ suggestions into practice without help.
By the way, I had the bogus Google pages you mention too, and I was foolish enough to actually download the “fix” the virus wants you to download. That is when the virus really got ferocious. But whether or not you have done that, you are already infected.
My solution was to go to bleepingcomputer.com. I had to go to the site on an uninfected computer (mine) since the virus (on my father’s) would not let me go there. I had to download suggested fixes onto the uninfected computer also.
Bleepingcomputer.com is, as far as I can tell from my dealings with them over the last two weeks, just a bunch of really nice people who really hate malware and have banded together to give free step-by-step advice to get rid of viruses. They’ll deal with any computer problem, but I notice they are especially dead-serious about malware. I have presented a problem to them since my virus fix, a recalcitrant taskbar that somtimes dissappears, and they seem a little less than enamored of helping me yet with that. It’s malware they like to fight.
Removing this virus is not quick. It took me and the person assigned to my case at bleepingcomputer four days of back-and-forth posting before he (or she - they have screen names like we do here) removed the last vestige of the virus.
One thing I can recommend is stick with the program. Early on in their recommended treatment (the first day in fact) all noticeable manifestations of the virus disappeared. The expert assigned to me was unimpressed and, as it turns out, was only just beginnng his removal of the virus at that point. You have to stick with the program until the malware is fully removed. Abandoning the process the minute everything seems back to normal will result in the virus springing back to life.
After the virus is completely removed and everything is back to normal, they set you up with free malware protection program of their recommendation and help you through its setup process.
They are professional and thorough and are on some kind of internal graded rating system like apprentice, journeyman, master, etc. (although not those names exactly).
I have only praise for my expert, whose name was fenzodahl512. The machine was so sick I thought it would die and now it is completely back to normal.