For the past few days, a virus has been opening IExplorer and playing an audiovisual ad for the university of Phoenix. I don’t even use IE, I use Mozilla. I reverted to a previous good configuration, but I am still getting them. I use XP and the OS doesn’t allow IE to be deleted (you can delete it; it will be reinstalled. Is there any way to block these ads? How does the University of Phoenix expect to get any business in this way?
Fix it using Malwarebytes from malwarebytes.org.
And contact the University of Phoenix and let them know what you think of their advertising.
In IE go to Tools - Pop-Up Blocker - Pop-Up Blocker Settings - at the bottom of that window set the drop down menu to High.
This will stop ALL Pop-Ups not just ads, including some from sites that you might want so if you click on a link to some site and it does not work check the little icon on the bottom of the page to see if it has been blocked.
You can exclude secure sites from being blocked in Pop-Up Blocker Settings.
I will try pop-up blocker, but it is not clear it is a pop-up. It causes IE (which I otherwise don’t use) to open and then run this ad for University of Phoenix. Finally, I turned the sound off and minimized the window. I noticed that four more opened (that is a total of five copies of IE were open), but they all stayed minimized. I didn’t look, but I think they five different ads. I will call U. Phoenix and give them a piece of my mind, but I assume they don’t care what I think.
Following my son’s advice, I used system restore to go back to an earlier state of the computer and that has appeared to cure it. For the moment.
Pop up blockers and such don’t do squat if you are infected. If the pop up is appearing on more than a couple sites you are visiting, the chances you are infected are quite high.
Start with the aforementioned malwarebytes. Review the advice given in the malware sticky.