Possible virus I can't get rid of?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Ok this is starting to concern me now, I've been seeing bluelink popup ads appearing in peoples posts on pretty much every forum I go to today, including here. Meanwhile, youtube is suddenly full of horendous background ads and any attempt to watch a video results in the entire thing running at about 1 frame per second, including audio slowdown, which also slows down my computer.

I've tried running a virus scan but nothing has turned up. Advice?

[PyrosNine]

Open up task manager while you're doing these things, and check the proceses. If anything suddenly takes a jump in memory/cpu while you're watching videos or on certain sites, and it isn't svchost.exe/flash plugin/firefox, then it's likely the culprit. Then google search that process to see if it's bad, and then see if you can close it via task manager.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Nope, nothing suspect there. My and task manager are very well aquainted, so I'd notice any new/odd programs running. Though I can now seem to have videos working, there's still ads behind them and in peoples forum posts.

[Bells]

What's your antvirus?

Stupid question but... is it updated?

Also, try CCLEANER

Also also, take a quick look into your "Unninstal software" from your control panel. See if there is anything suspicious in there.

One way these virus get around your protection is by pretending not be a virus, hiding in plain sight was a normal software.

Also, Spybot will likely rip it the hell out of your pc

[Krylo]

Try a different browser.

If there's nothing in your taskmanager it's probably something that's attached itself to firefox or chrome or whatever.

[Osterbaum]

I've actually been having basically the same problem on my tabletop; bluelink popup ads on any text anywhere on the internet (seems to be on certain key words like "game" or "money" etc.) and background ads at the start of youtube videos. Ran a scan on my antivirus (comodo) and also ran a scan on malwarebytes and both turned out nothing.

Not in reach of my tabletop right now. Can't remember for sure if the same problem was present both with Firefox and IE, I seem to recall it was though.

[Aldurin]

Check your plugins and add-ons for your browser, sometimes stuff tries to install itself against your will (usually toolbars that you can uncheck, like on the Java update, but malware sites will try to pull it, too).

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Originally Posted by Bells

What's your antvirus?

Stupid question but... is it updated?

Also, try CCLEANER

Also also, take a quick look into your "Unninstal software" from your control panel. See if there is anything suspicious in there.

One way these virus get around your protection is by pretending not be a virus, hiding in plain sight was a normal software.

Also, Spybot will likely rip it the hell out of your pc

I'm using Avast. It updates like twice a day usually, but, it appears to not be all that good. I'm doing another long arsed, in depth scan now, but then I'll try another of those programs. There's nothing on my uninstall list that looks suspicious.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Try a different browser.

If there's nothing in your taskmanager it's probably something that's attached itself to firefox or chrome or whatever.

Yeah this is what I'm thinking. Unfortunately my computer has never like firefox for some reason. I'll try a different brower if/when the virus scans fail.

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

I've actually been having basically the same problem on my tabletop; bluelink popup ads on any text anywhere on the internet (seems to be on certain key words like "game" or "money" etc.) and background ads at the start of youtube videos. Ran a scan on my antivirus (comodo) and also ran a scan on malwarebytes and both turned out nothing.

Not in reach of my tabletop right now. Can't remember for sure if the same problem was present both with Firefox and IE, I seem to recall it was though.

Yeah, pretty much exactly what I've got right now. "Game" is one of the most notable words it flags, as well as "plays", which considering I go to a lot of gaming sites.. yeah, it shows up a lot.

Originally Posted by Aldurin

Check your plugins and add-ons for your browser, sometimes stuff tries to install itself against your will (usually toolbars that you can uncheck, like on the Java update, but malware sites will try to pull it, too).

Not seeing anything in the plugins that looks dodgy. I suspect that it IS linked directly to IE somewhere, but if it is it's in deep.

---------- Post added at 02:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:02 AM ----------

Ok so, CCLEANER is a travesty. It kept trying to open multiple brwoers and download a bunch of totally unrelated shit, so I pulled the plug on that quick.

Trying Spybot now, seems to be working better, but hasn't solved the problem yet. Couple of quick scans found some naff files, but I'm forcing it to do a more detail scan of my entire program list now. I'm not holding my breath though.

Also included on that program list is Spybot itself and it doesn't seem to like scanning itself, so yeah.

[Revising Ocelot]

ESET Online Scanner usually works pretty well. Give that a run.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Let's take a systematic approach to this instead of a slapdash try-this's and thats's with no direction or reason:

First and foremost if you want to be thorough DO NOT SKIP ANY STEP BETWEEN 1 TO 5. 6 and 7 are optional, but I'd suggest doing them anyway.

1. Use a pre-environment live disk virus scanner like AVG Live or Kaspersky Rescue Disk. When I worked at the shop I had more luck with AVG Live working with more computers than I did with Kaspersky, so have both on hand. If both work: all the better, one will find what the other misses. They don't work on wireless so you'll need to be running with an ethernet cable if you're on a laptop like Oster. These will take time but they are both incredibly effective.

2. After scans Boot into safe mode with networking then run malwarebytes full scan / antivirus in safe mode with networking. Then run TDSS-Killer (the link is to Kaspersky Labs for the download, just making sure this is clarified). Followed by MS Safety Scanner

2.5 while you're in safe mode and you suspect IE is contributing to the problem then completely blow out its settings and return to default. Gear> internet options> Advanced Tab> Reset...> Delete Personal Settings> Reset. Check all your browsers' search engines, default pages, delete all cookies, etc.

3. Check your HOSTS file to see if there's any redirectors in there. Compare yours to default HOSTS file, can be found anywhere online easily.

3.5. Download R-Kill. Do not run yet, needs to be done in live. See step 4.

4. Boot to regular ol' live mode and run R-Kill. This will stop a lot of cat and mouse chasing with any malware. Fucking amazing program because if it detects anything that shouldn't be there it'll kill its processes then and there so it cannot move around / duplicate itself somewhere else. Hell, set it run automatically whenever windows starts up for added measure.

5. Set firefox to 'start in safe mode' so nothing outside of the basic default settings will run. If no ads, banners, popups, etc. happen then you have an add-on / Plug-in problem.

6 (optional, but never hurts) If you want to be even more thorough download and run GMER. It is a scanner to check if there are any rootkits, and it can remove 'em. When you download it it'll have a random assortment of letters and numbers every time. This is to fool any download blocking attempts.

7 (optional, but never hurts) run malware / antivirus full scans again in live.