Really annoying worm-type thingy

anyone else had their pc’s attacked by something that resets your default browser opening page with this code:

%61%63%63%2e%63%6f%75%6e%74%2d%6 … 8%6c%6f%77

which is a page that purports to be a search engine but isnt…

both my work pc’s (2) and home pc have caught this and i’ve seen other peoples pc’s with it…i’ve tried running spybot but it doesnt purge it…any ideas?

I’ve been sent worms multiple times daily - so many that I don’t even bother to scan them -just delete them and throw them away -it’s a real inconvenience.

CK

Install a virus scanner like the free AVG FREE Edition

I second Rascal’s advice.

Take a look here for removal instructions.

Oh, this is worth a look too if AVG can’t remove it.

And finally, I just have to vent a little about patching.

Every copy of Chinese Windows in Taiwan uses the same serial! You know the one… FCKGW-…-…-…-… . Of course, Microsoft has blacklisted this serial from Windows Update, creating the world’s biggest pool of zombie machines, waiting for their evil masters to send them forth on their missions of doom and annoyance.

That means nobody patches their machines, even from years old exploits. If your machine was patched, it wouldn’t get this infection. Now, I recognize that some people, expecially at work, have the machines they have and are in no position to go out and buy Windows. So, here are a few things you can do.

  1. Get decent anti malware software - AVG + Spybot + Ad-Aware. These are all free. Get them all! Some will catch what others will miss.

  2. Download the patches directly from Microsoft and apply them - not through Windows Update, which will reject you if you have the serial number of doom. If you apply the corporate patches, they will work, at least for critical updates.

  3. Get a new serial. You can change the serial without reinstalling Windows.

  4. Get a firewall. ZoneAlarm and Outpost are free. Use them.

I went to the URL given above. It is indeed a search page - in Russian.

I have the same problem. My browser is set to www .Search Central. cc and nothing I can do can get rid of it.

Adaware 6 and PcCillin have no effect. Now I open IE first, click on a website then connect to the Net.

It got on my PC when I visited some warez sites. I didn’t click on anything to download stuff but there were plenty of popups (which can got round my popup blocker) which were likely the cause.
I’m never going to a warez site again! Grrrr! :fume:
Unless of course there is a safe warez site someone can recommend?

As bobdobba I use 3 things: a virus scanner, a pop-up blocker and a scanner for finding adware.

NEVER had any problems so far, AVG updates automatically (manually is also possible) and it is pretty good at finding and quarantining viruses, including those contained in your email client.
The free Panicware pop-up blocker works fine, too, but to open e.g. a Java-Script window from IE you are required to keep the CTRL key pressed. Hence I am using the Opera Browser nowadays for most of my surfing as it can supress pop-ups, too.
Lavasoft Ad-Aware isn’t really convenient since you need to update and run it manually, but it will find annoying advertising on your PC and in the Windows registry and remove it for good.

Spack, try switching to Netscape v7.1. So far, I’ve run into exactly one website that tried to change my home page – Netscape prompted me, I clicked “No”, and nothing got changed. Might work, might not – depends on what your machine got infected with.

Alternately, try Knoppix or Morphix for general websurfing – you should be able to look at any website on the planet without a single worry, although some of them might not display properly. Just use one of those little USB “flash drives” to save things, or (slightly more risky) mount your HD partition and save things to it. (Danger: don’t do this with an NTFS partition, only FAT32.)

BTW, from your penguin, I just kinda always assumed you were a Linux guy. What’re you doing using the Evil Empire’s browser?? :noway: :smiley:

I wish I was technologically savvy enough to use Linux. I read HP might use Linux on PCs produced in Asia in the future. If Linux can just reach a critical number of users I think it will take off in a really big way.

As for Netscape, I’ve used it before but it kept crashing all the time and I kept losing all my emails. I use XP. Have other XP users had problems with Netscape? And is Mozilla all that it’s cracked up to be? Isn’t it supposed to be the same thing as Netscape?

Spack, perhaps you should use a different email client, i.e. one that is not part of the broswer.
If you want an alternative browser try Opera, see link above.

I’m using the latest version of Mozilla - Firefox. It’s great. It’s not quite a stable release - it’s version 0.8 and will only be classified as stable once it reaches version 1 and above, but actually I have had very few problems with it.
mozilla.org/products/firefox/

It has tabbed browsing, integrated search (default is Google but you can add many many more search engines) and blocks popups. It also has a reasonable download manager.

It’s user-friendly - I don’t really know much about the inner workings of stuff but it’s all pretty obvious and if you want to get plug-ins that’s easy as well.

It’s a browser only, but I think there’s a related mail client, or at least on its way.

I liked Opera as well but got a Java virus that I’ve only just got rid of. Also, unless you pay around 39 USD it has a big ad. panel in the top right. (Fair enough as that’s their business model, but as I can get equal performance from Firefox for free I’ll go for the latter.)

[quote=“Spack”]I wish I was technologically savvy enough to use Linux.

As for Netscape, I’ve used it before but it kept crashing all the time and I kept losing all my emails. I use XP. Have other XP users had problems with Netscape? And is Mozilla all that it’s cracked up to be? Isn’t it supposed to be the same thing as Netscape?[/quote]
On Win2K, I think I’ve seen Netscape 7.1 crash just once. Mozilla is similar in function (I don’t know about stability under WinXP); they started from the same core code. I’ve only tried Mozilla under Knoppix, and I preferred the native KDE browser, Konqueror (a lot faster loading, less of a resource hog).

Linux isn’t difficult at all from an email-and-web-browsing standpoint. Give one of the Live CD products – Morphix, Knoppix, or MandrakeMove – a shot. I’d say go with Knoppix unless your computer has an nVidia chipset, in which case try Morphix. These are bootable CDs that don’t touch your hard drive unless you explicitly tell them to. Boot from the CD, you’re running Linux. Take out the CD and reboot, and you’re running Windows again.

The only big warning is, don’t try to use your hard drive if it’s NTFS. (Reading might be safe – not sure. Writing definitely isn’t.)

For email, I dunno, I just use web-based email systems now for the most part (Yahoo). That works fine from a Live CD, but if you want to save your email to your hard drive, you’d need to set things up differently. I haven’t tried that – would’ve gotten MandrakeMove, which does it to a USB “flash drive”, but their free test version didn’t like the networking chip in my computer.

The Konqueror browser works almost the same as Netscape; the biggest change for me was getting used to ctrl-R not working to reload the screen. For general websurfing, it’s great – again, though, saving bookmarks are a problem unless you write them to hard disk (easier in Knoppix, which can create a “persistent home” on your non-NTFS hard drive, but I read that Morphix doesn’t do that yet).

Where there is a will there is a way (around that) … :wink:

I’m running Mozilla - both the suite and Firefox/-bird. Get it, install it, explore it! I can’t remember having seen Mozilla crashing since 1.3 came out. If you get the whole suite, you will need to change a few settings to have more comfort/security. Firefox has all those as default settings.

Not completely, though I can’t remember the differences. I never used Netscape again since I switched from 4.7 to Mozilla 1.0.

You should also go to mozilla.org and browse through the plug-ins, they make the whole thing even better…

I’m getting abit OT here but someone mentioned saving bookmarks which is quite important to me. I have the yahoo toolbar so I bookmark twice (once in IE, once in yahoo toolbar) just in case IE crashes one day or I need to reboot.

How do you guys/gals back up your bookmarks or do you generally not bother to?

[quote=“Spack”]I’m getting abit OT here but someone mentioned saving bookmarks which is quite important to me. I have the yahoo toolbar so I bookmark twice (once in IE, once in yahoo toolbar) just in case IE crashes one day or I need to reboot.

How do you guys/gals back up your bookmarks or do you generally not bother to?[/quote]
In Netscape, it’s easy – there is a file, bookmark.htm, saved in the “user” files area (where your email, etc., is kept). Just copy that wherever you want.

IE is a pain in the ass about it, since (at least up through Win2K) they put each bookmark in its own separate file. Stupid, but that’s Microsoft. . . .

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend either Netscape or Mozilla, because I found them clunky, slow, and too stubborn in their ways.

I do love OPERA, though.

Kenneth

That’s where Firefox is different. It’s user-friendly, has a small program size and is very fast. I also believe from what I’ve seen so far that it’s very configurable if you’re into that kind of thing.

I have read that this is the Mozilla organisation’s first serious attempt at making a product aimed directly at the end-user, rather than developers.