Okay, apologies to all for my temper at the moment, but I've just spent the last hour removing all traces of a !#$%!#$%!#$ piece of spyware that installed itself on my system.

The !#$%!#$% is called X-u-p-i-t-e-r (remove the dashes for the real name), and it installed itself without permission, hijacked my start page, and hijacked my search functions in the browser. There is no automated uninstaller, so I had to search for some clue, and came across a link with instructions on getting rid of it (and its three variants!) Frickin' viral wart-hog bunion...

What really torques me off is that I think it was installed when I went to a (formerly) friendly gaming site... Cool Jerk's page for MM7. Something there installed a clock-syncing program that I didn't want (booted that out as well), and I suspect this !#$%!#$% hopped in at the same time. Or maybe it was the same thing; I don't know.

And then it decided to load up my Favorites folder with ten new folders of !#$%!#$, all pointing to some gambling/p0rn/illicit crap that I don't care about. Took me a while to clean that up too...

What I know is that I had to do two full registry crawls and two full reboots to remove all indications that it ever existed. So far, so good...

Apparently, Ad-Aware and one other popup-killer type critter can remove this and its variants. I may well be installing it shortly... grrrr.....

*deep breath*

*okay, seventy-five more deep breaths*

Just what I needed to finish off an otherwise pleasant evening.

I think I'm okay now. If anyone else runs into (or has run into) this garbage and wants help and thoughts on getting rid of it, let me know. I am now experienced.

And.... <nasty-language-filter on>

...if I ever find the barnacle-besotted bottom-dwelling maggot-descended horse-patootie-licking cow-pie-swallowing American-beer-drinking pus-infected justification for retroactive birth control among lower invertebrates, slugs, and sea weasels, I may do the whole world a big favor.

<nasty-language-filter off>

Okay, I know it wasn't really nasty, but I didn't want to get banned today... but I could...

*B*
Feeling calmer now

I've had something similiar happen to me too B, sounds like you got hacked. It's a good thing my dad is a computer guy and all otherwise I probably would've been in trouble. One day (continuely in a week anyway), my anti-firewall kept asking if I would allow a certain program to be accessed through the internet, each time I would click yes until I wanted to look into it further. I forget what the name of the program was called, but I don't think I'd ever heard of it before, and it just appeared out of thin air on my computer. When you download certain pieces of software or not, a hacker will upload a certain program onto your Pc to monitor what you do, your anti-virul data and so forth. Then after so long they'll hack the hell out of you quite literally. Sorry that happened bud, try scanning all your programs you download for viruses before anything happens, I still think that's what caused it.

Take it easy dude.

I know how you feel [img]smile.gif[/img] I like keeping a spotless PC as well. Do you use Ad-Aware? That program usually can get rid of spyware and other undesirable crap. plus it's a free download if i remeber correctly. :D

Edit:
Oops...so you do know of AdAware :D yeah use it [img]smile.gif[/img] It's good.

[ 04-13-2003, 12:52 AM: Message edited by: Bristowe ]

[img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img] And I'm still ticked, because it *DID* hijack my search button, and disabled the ability to change the search page! Had to reset web settings to revert it back...

And when I uninstalled pieces of it, it launched a browser to a "you've almost uninstalled me" web page. Under "reasons for uninstalling", it didn't include "because I didn't install you in the first place, you thieving advertisement for retroactive birth control!" BTW, if you get that @#$!@# page, just nuke it. The uninstall still works...

Yes, I'm less than happy. I think I've gotten rid of all the traces, but I'll be keeping an eye on this machine for the near future. [img]graemlins/1pissed.gif[/img]

Also beware of your mother-board clicking, otherwise you're really screwed [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img]

what do you mean by that? the motherboard got this sound "kekekekekekekek"?

No, a ticking sound, like a bomb. Usually if this happens your computer lags or freezes up. Means your mother-board (or harddrive) is going bad.

uh my other computer when turn on got that sound. " kekekekekekkek" but the computer works perfectly. strange..

Well, it does that from time to time, usually it's that big of a deal, but if it does that continuesly then you had better watch out Kakero. It happened to me before, and if your hard-drive or motherboard goes bad, you quite literally lose everything. Just a friendly warning, be careful.

ahh...thanks for the warning. I'll go check it up.