Jabez Scratch Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 I know that this is really off-topic, but I am really desperate and hoping perhaps that some members here have a solution to this computer problem. This trojan malware is pretty innocuous but very annoying. It simply hijacks my homepage in my browser and forces a search engine page to be my homepage. First, I've tried everything: all the standard spyware removal programs and trying to manually remove the malicious keys/values from my registry. No success. Any suggestions? Apparently, this is quite a recent hijacker. If I can't get rid of it soon, I'm just going to wipe out my C: partition and re-install Windows XP (I was going to do it soon anyways so not a big deal). Thanks in advance for any help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleve Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 Here's the Symantec page on Adware.Raxums - not sure if that's the same as what you have or not... http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.raxums.html There's removal instructions on the above page. Good luck! EDIT - Forgot to add, make sure you back up your important documents before editing the registry! That looks like an ugly fix! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anarchist Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 Jabez, These programs not only enjoy placing some entries in your registry which are easily removed, they enjoy editing your host file. Since everything passes through it, you are actually going to some other site as your search engine and are often reinfected simultaneously. Review this file. I spent weeks trying to remove one of these things AND never realized it had filled my host file with dozens of aliases. These peasants who create this annoying crap should be summarily executed. Here is a heck of a tool - I have used it. The site also contains a great deal of information on these trojans and variants to enable you to feel more comfortable 'hacking' around to eliminate others. http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancestorm Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 I had a similar problem and found editing the host file very important. A good dozen or so entries were in that file that shouldn't have been in there. Another thing. Consider another browser, it might limit you to the number of malicious spyware out there. For example, I have Mozilla (www.mozilla.org) and have had no spyware resurgence on my computer!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 I had one of those infections in my computer and cwshredder dealt with it handily. "cwshredder". It's available free online, search. As long as we're on computers; am I the only person about fed-up with google? It now seems aimed to be completely commercial in search results and keeps repeating the same commercial results at the top of every page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skeptic Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 "It now seems aimed to be completely commercial in search results and keeps repeating the same commercial results at the top of every page." Are you talking about the text only sponsored links at the top of the page? IMHO - google is the only ones that are staying away from pop up-over- under ads in favor of simple text, that is in a different color block, and *clearly* marked as paid for. The other search companies (most of them) just throw the ads in with the real search results, and don't bother to tell you. No problems here with that. Google does a great job, and its free, so as long as they continue to mark what is an ad and what is a search result, I'm fine with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandi Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 TBrennon, CW shredder worked great and took no time at all. I cringe when my kids are on the computer. It is amazing the popups that are on these nick sites. She will be playing an online game and I look and there are 15 windows open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edster00 Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 Here is an 'ad free' google proxy. Google Watch has a bunch of anti-google info on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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