I use Avast! to guard my PC against malware, and it has been pretty reliable up to now. But whoever is behind this one has figured out how either to piggyback on to Avast! or to imitate it, because, as I recall, I let this thing into my system in reponse to (what appeared to be) a notice from Avast! that Avast! wants to download the attached, “Adobe Flash Player.” But it isn’t, and now whenever I go from one screen to another I see a yellow-and-white bar at the bottom of the screen asking me to (again) add/install “the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.” And, now there are many sites where I can no longer play video-clips, because the system says, “You need latest version of Adobe Flash Player to play”.
I followed all the instructions on this video – I downloaded and ran hitmanpro, adwcleaner and malwarebytes – none found any infection. I went to my control panel and uninstalled every program with “Adobe” in the name, then went to Adobe.com and downloaded Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player, so now I know I have the latest version – but, all remains as described above.
First of all, did you read through the ‘how to remove malware from your PC’ thread stickied at the top of this forum?
However, it sounds less like a malware infection and more like flash player simply isn’t being recognized by your web browser. Have you restarted your PC since installing flash player? That may be necessary to make windows (and IE) recognize it’s there.
I agree that is sounds like a bad install of Flash rather than malware. If what dstarfire suggested doesn’t work, try uninstalling all instances of Flash via the control panel, and then re-installing from the Adobe site. You may need to make sure your browser is closed down during the install.
Already tried that, thanks. And based on that YouTube video linked in the OP, apparently there is a well-known bit of malware floating around disguised as “Adobe Flash Player”.
And now I’m getting a new one (on Wikiquote), in a box at the bottom of the screen: “This webpage wants to run the following add-on: ‘Java SE Runtime Environment 7 Update 17’ from ‘Oracle America Inc.’”
Ooh, this is nasty! I went to my control panel, selected “Uninstall Programs,” my program directory came up, there is a line for “Java 7 Update 17,” publisher “Oracle” – and I can’t uninstall it! When I try, it runs for a couple of seconds and then I get the message: “Do you want to allow the following program to update software on your computer?” It seems they have this thing rigged so you can’t uninstall it without authorizing reinfection! :mad:
Is this a parody thread or something? That’s java that’s trying to run. If you want to uninstall it, it will ask you permission. Am I getting whooshed in GQ?
Anyway, run MalwareBytes, I guess, then maybe switch from Avast! to Microsoft Security Essentials or something.
ETA: Just read through this thread again – it really doesn’t look like an infection to me. Just a bad install or something.
You’d be surprised at the number of sites (that ought to know better) that want to run unsafe add-ons. I get prompted to run just about everything by Wikipedia at one time or another. Citibank’s online banking wants to run Shockwave.
Due to former repeated blasts of malware served by Straight Dope ads, I now run Chrome with everything turned off, and only enable specific features needed by a particular site (and for that site only). Likewise for 3rd-party cookies.
Or other people are having the same problem as you with a Flash install have jumped to the same erroneous conclusion.
Malware (unless it is adware that is trying to sell you something) does not announce its presence, it hides, and it does not ask you to install more stuff, because once it is on there it doesn’t need to. You (almost certainly) have a corrupt install of Flash, or one that is not linking in to your browser for some reason. If you have really reinstalled Flash after uninstalling it first, check your browser’s plugin options.
Also, it now appears that your Java is trying to update itself. This is unconnected. In nine cases out of ten the best thing to do about Java is simply to uninstall it. In the tenth case (of someone who has a real use for Java) the best thing is to run the update. The worst thing is to keep it installed but not let it update. That really will (eventually) get you malware.
I’m sorry, but you just don’t know nearly as much about computers as you apparently think you do.
I have installed and uninstalled many, many programs of various types over the years. Sometimes an install or upgrade just doesn’t “take” for some reason, and you have to do it all over again. Furthermore, different programs have different ways of handling an uninstall. It is far from unheard-of for a program to be set up in such a way that you have to give it permission to run in order to uninstall itself.
Sometimes, for reasons unknown, the “update software” verbiage is used for any type of change to the program, including uninstalling it.
When it comes to computer security, a little paranoia is a good thing, but you are far beyond that point. You are so paranoid that you are hurting yourself. You have jumped to the conclusion that anything strange is automatically malicious.