Thread: attacking favorites

  1. #1
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    attacking favorites

    Hey guys, for some reason on my girlfriends computer three weird links have appeared in her IE favorites. Not only that, but her home page gets set to http://ziportal.com/. I've tried getting rid of them, but everytime she reboots the puter they come back! I've tried clearing the cache/temp and what not, and it still continues; I've run a virus scan, and still nothing. Any ideas?

    BTW, she is running winblowsXP and IE.

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  2. #2
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    try using some anti spyware software. sadly, $$$$ like this is all too common on the internet these days. all it takes is for you to click yes to an activex box, and you have some spyware. turn activex off.

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    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    I tried finding some decent spyware removal software, but all these companies seem shady as fsck! I googled around a bit, and I'm not sure which one to try. Some do not look professional at all. Has anyone ever used spyware removal softwre of anykind...is there aything you can recommend?

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

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    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    Thanks Brian, that really helped! She had a lot of stuff on her PC according to that software. Then again, five people use that computer on a daily basis, so I guess that stuff happens. I run the program on my PC and got one warning...and that was from M$ site ?! whatever.

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  6. #6
    carry on JaWiB's Avatar
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    I get warnings (using spybot) about one thing from pretty much every site, including this forum...I'm beginning to think its not such a "threat"
    "Think not but that I know these things; or think
    I know them not: not therefore am I short
    Of knowing what I ought."
    -John Milton, Paradise Regained (1671)

    "Work hard and it might happen."
    -XSquared

  7. #7
    PC Fixer-Upper Waldo2k2's Avatar
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    I don't use the warning feature, i just use imunize and removal
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    reply

    try reinstalling the browser and removing the temporary internet files cache.
    when u get there, there is isn't any there there.

  9. #9
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    Re: reply

    Originally posted by rajesh23
    try reinstalling the browser and removing the temporary internet files cache.
    I did all that before Brian's suggestion and it still didn't work.

    Now to even more problems. After using the software which Brian recommended I thought I had everything fixed...wrong. After rebuting the system the links still appeared in the favorites, then another problem arose: something was using 100% of the computer resources! I couldn't do much as even the cursor was moving quite slow. That was peculiar as the computer is fairly new, about half year old.

    Anyways, i opened task manager (which took about a minute) and saw that a certain file DLLHost was eating memory up like crazy. I didn't know how to find the location of that file through task manager, thankfully sometime ago I installed a copy of M$VC++ on that computer, so I tried "debugging" DLLHost....the debugger let me to the location of the file. After deleteing it, everything worked smoothly.

    the file location was WINDOWS>>SYSTEM32>>Wins

    this leads to another question: is there a way to get the location of the processs from task manager?

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  10. #10
    PC Fixer-Upper Waldo2k2's Avatar
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    did you happen to think that perhaps DLLhost is a file you might need?
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  11. #11
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Waldo2k2
    did you happen to think that perhaps DLLhost is a file you might need?
    well I checked on both of my XP boxes and that file was not there. The only file that was there, was SVCHost.exe; so I figured that it doesn't belong. So far everything seems to be running smoothly; after rebuting the unwanted links are gone...

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  12. #12
    PC Fixer-Upper Waldo2k2's Avatar
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    Oh yeah, that's what I was thinking of
    but next time I'd search msdn for that file to see if it's a real file or not, not all xp installations are identical.
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    good program

    i had that problem due to spyware. i recommend adawre (go to lavasoftusa.com) it fixed everything, and better yet its 100% free!!!
    1+1 = 0
    if you think that's wrong then you shouldn't be here!!!

  14. #14
    PC Fixer-Upper Waldo2k2's Avatar
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    WOW!
    thanks for informing us, we didn't know such a thing existed
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  15. #15
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    are you responding to me when you say that? if you are then thanks. also its called adaware! i spelt it wrong lol. they also have support forums like this if you need help. no technical jargon lol
    1+1 = 0
    if you think that's wrong then you shouldn't be here!!!

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