Somehow I’ve wound up with a bit of malware that a Norton scan didn’t notice. On any webpage, random words have turned into links, and when my cursor moves over them an ad appears.
I know that there is a fix for this (I’ve seen it before on the SDMB) but I don’t remember it. Any help?
Also, I don’t know if it’s related or not, but the Straight Dope will not load for me on Chrome (or Firefox). I had to DL Safari just to write this post. Is there a fix for that problem as well?
Thanks!
Would that be the sticky “How to protect and clean your computer from malware” thread at the top of this very forum?
Although that is a symptom of an infection, there are sites that do exactly that as a normal page display and are not infected.
How to tell the difference? Can you access a site that is 100% trusted, like one you control? Can you verify that the HTML code isn’t corrupted? If so, and you get the underlined links, you have a problem with your computer.
Otherwise, it might be something you have no control over other than not visiting that web site.
Here is the same question being asked with responses:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-security/i-have-random-words-in-all-websites-highlighted/42b655de-d042-48dd-a198-4a5d1dbefc11
Look for a newly installed program in your control panel.
If you see something recent you don’t recognize google it and see if it’s the cause.
That’s how I fixed this issue.
Install the free program Malwarebytes, that should fix it.
It is very good, I used it for a while, now use Microsoft Essentials, also free, figuring that they know most about how Windows works.