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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....
...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.
Okay, I know it wasn't really nasty, but I didn't want to get banned today... but I could...
*B*
Feeling calmer now
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