Advertising keyword hyperlinks / browser freezing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kerberos
  • Start date Start date
K

Kerberos

Hi...I'm at my wits end with this...

within the last two months, every website I see has certain keywords
turned into hyperlinks. Every occurance of these words gets turned in
to a hyperlink: "books" links to amazon.com, "intel" to intel.com,
"visa" to visa.com. It's really annoying and frustrating.

Pages also take a long time to completely load. The status bar says
Done, but the status indicator (the little green bar that goes accoss
as the page loads) stays at 100% and the browser freezes for 10 - 20
seconds before finally loading and allowing me to click on links.
Every link I click on does the same thing. Pressing the Back button
produces another long wait. The more intensive the page, the longer
the waits. Some times java intensive pages will generate alot of
errors. These pages work fine on my laptop.

this must be some kind of spyware, but niether antivius, or Ad-Aware
and Spybot detect anything. I don't have any pop-ups, or any other
system problems.

Any ideas? I've reinstalled windows (doing a repair install, cant
face backing up and reinstalling almost 100BG of apps....yet) This did
nothing to fis the problem, neither did installing XP SP2. And don't
just tell me to use Netscape, I hate Netscape. :o)

Thanks for any suggestions!

Peter
 
This activity is known to be caused by some malware. Check it out.

Try this: Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Browsing
Uncheck the Enable 3rd party browser extensions

If this clears your problem then find out who the culprit(s) is/are with
these tools.

Let AD-Aware Scan your system for advertising Spyware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com

If you use a HOSTS file, beware of this new issue.
Ad-Aware has decided to include a new detection when scanning the HOSTS
file. This now creates a "Bad hosts file entry" in the log file generated at
the end of a scan. The best thing to do is to place a check in each entry,
right-click and select: "Add selection to ignorelist". Otherwise if you let
AWW "fix" these items it will trash the HOSTS file! Even if you have it
"locked" by [example] SpywareBlaster or Winpatrol. It does not return the
attributes and renames the HOSTS file incorrectly to hosts.

and:

SpyBot-S&D
http://security.kolla.de/

p.s Reset the 3rd party browser setting.

More: This may be caused by a third-party program (adware, spyware,
parasite).
Get AdAware and SpyBot and run them both. Keep them up to date.
Dealing with Unwanted Spyware, Parasites, Toolbars and Search Engines
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm

Additional link:
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm

You may need this removal tool.
More: Complete list by variant with up-to-date information.
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html
More: Removal tool: http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/CWShredder.exe

CWShredder - Tutorial
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/index.php?showtutorial=47

IMPORTANT:
Before trying to remove spyware, download a copy of LSPFIX from
the URL below - some malware may kill your internet connection when it is
removed, this program will enable you to regain your connection.
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm
http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html (if your OS is Win2k or
XP)


Important: "So how did I get infected in the first place?"
http://forums.net-integration.net/index.php?showtopic=3051
 
Back
Top