Strands #248 “Strumming Right...
Quizzes & Puzzles16 mins ago
I Need Help To Eliminate A Sudden Outbreak Of Annoying Ad 'tags' And Windows On My Computer
12 Answers
I wonder if anybody will recognise what this is, and can advise on how to get rid of it. I will try to describe the problem as fully as possible - there are a lot of different aspects to it.
About a week ago, I decided that as my computer was continually slowing down and refusing to respond to mouse clicks and keyboard commands, I had better get a full scan performed by both the anti-virus systems I have installed - AVG and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.
After the scans had finished, at the bottom of one of the boxes was a button which said 'Update', which I clicked on. Didn't seem to achieve anything, so I just went back to my e-mail - and found it littered with little green boxes with an arrow pointing out of the top right corner. The boxes - about 4-5mm square - were attached to various words, most of which seemed to have some vague connection to money, finance, business, etc. The words were picked out in a larger font in capitals, underlined, and in a different colour. As I had never seen such a thing before, I decided to click on one of them. This immediately opened up a new tab at the top of the screen, with an advert for some incredible free offer, university course, gambling, or some survey from BT or my bank, etc. I then got a narrow grey band at the top of the screen, telling me that Adobe Flash was asking me to either 'continue blocking' or 'allow'. I always clicked on the former, and then on the X on the tab. This cancelled the tab, but when I returned to the e-mail screen, I found a large (matchbox-size) box in place of the small green box, with some offer relating to the thing I'd just cleared from the ad tab before. I was able to clear that box by clicking on an X in the corner. I then went through the same tedious process for all the little green boxes I found on my e-mail, and thought that I'd got rid of them.
However, the next thing I did was go to my bank account page - and to my annoyance, I found a couple of dozen of the damn things all over that, too. So I spent half an hour clearing all of them, as well.
But every page I went to, both existing ones and new ones, I found the things scattered all over the place - and when I went back to my e-mail, all the boxes I'd previously cleared were back again. Since then, every page I've visited has been littered with these boxes, and they are extremely annoying, not to mention worrying. It was starting to look like some attempt to monitor my financial affairs with a view to stripping my account of funds. So far, this has not been the case.
But there is a further dimension to all this: often, when I click on something, instead of going to what I clicked on, it suddenly opens up a new tab which, again, is advertising something along the same lines as what I described earlier. I have to cancel that tab and return to the page I was on. I also keep finding that the very action of clicking on something draws the attention of some agency which opens up as a new window in the Firefox drop-up box at the bottom of the screen. The wording on the window description is often in a foreign language, and seems to relate to one or other of the previously mentioned free offers. I've never kept one open long enough to read their contents, and always delete them as soon as I find them.
As I had no idea what to do about this, I got in touch with BT, who are my service provider. I spent an hour and a half on the phone to a man who tried to be helpful, but nothing he told me ended up with the result I wanted. However, at least he was able to show me how to get rid of the annoying panel of ads on the right-hand side of my e-mail screen, and the strip ad on the top line of my e-mail - although I could temporarily blank them, as soon as I did anything on my e-mail, they came back again. Now, at least, I no longer have to put up with that distracting intrusion into my thought processes.
Does anybody know what this problem is, and how to block it completely?
Thanks for your help.
About a week ago, I decided that as my computer was continually slowing down and refusing to respond to mouse clicks and keyboard commands, I had better get a full scan performed by both the anti-virus systems I have installed - AVG and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.
After the scans had finished, at the bottom of one of the boxes was a button which said 'Update', which I clicked on. Didn't seem to achieve anything, so I just went back to my e-mail - and found it littered with little green boxes with an arrow pointing out of the top right corner. The boxes - about 4-5mm square - were attached to various words, most of which seemed to have some vague connection to money, finance, business, etc. The words were picked out in a larger font in capitals, underlined, and in a different colour. As I had never seen such a thing before, I decided to click on one of them. This immediately opened up a new tab at the top of the screen, with an advert for some incredible free offer, university course, gambling, or some survey from BT or my bank, etc. I then got a narrow grey band at the top of the screen, telling me that Adobe Flash was asking me to either 'continue blocking' or 'allow'. I always clicked on the former, and then on the X on the tab. This cancelled the tab, but when I returned to the e-mail screen, I found a large (matchbox-size) box in place of the small green box, with some offer relating to the thing I'd just cleared from the ad tab before. I was able to clear that box by clicking on an X in the corner. I then went through the same tedious process for all the little green boxes I found on my e-mail, and thought that I'd got rid of them.
However, the next thing I did was go to my bank account page - and to my annoyance, I found a couple of dozen of the damn things all over that, too. So I spent half an hour clearing all of them, as well.
But every page I went to, both existing ones and new ones, I found the things scattered all over the place - and when I went back to my e-mail, all the boxes I'd previously cleared were back again. Since then, every page I've visited has been littered with these boxes, and they are extremely annoying, not to mention worrying. It was starting to look like some attempt to monitor my financial affairs with a view to stripping my account of funds. So far, this has not been the case.
But there is a further dimension to all this: often, when I click on something, instead of going to what I clicked on, it suddenly opens up a new tab which, again, is advertising something along the same lines as what I described earlier. I have to cancel that tab and return to the page I was on. I also keep finding that the very action of clicking on something draws the attention of some agency which opens up as a new window in the Firefox drop-up box at the bottom of the screen. The wording on the window description is often in a foreign language, and seems to relate to one or other of the previously mentioned free offers. I've never kept one open long enough to read their contents, and always delete them as soon as I find them.
As I had no idea what to do about this, I got in touch with BT, who are my service provider. I spent an hour and a half on the phone to a man who tried to be helpful, but nothing he told me ended up with the result I wanted. However, at least he was able to show me how to get rid of the annoying panel of ads on the right-hand side of my e-mail screen, and the strip ad on the top line of my e-mail - although I could temporarily blank them, as soon as I did anything on my e-mail, they came back again. Now, at least, I no longer have to put up with that distracting intrusion into my thought processes.
Does anybody know what this problem is, and how to block it completely?
Thanks for your help.
Answers
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From the description, it spunds like something called "Adwords".
My knowledge of how these work in is minimal and I have not had the misfortune to encounter them for over a year. I used to think it was something designed into the html coding of individual webpages. Many emails are in html format, to make them loom like a webpage.
The fact that the clickable words "followed" you to your banking page is very worrying and makes me think that a thing called a "browser helper object" (BHO) has installed itself on your computer. This means this annoyance will follow you everywhere. "Clearing" all the green boxes by clicking each and every one of them achieves nothing (but pay-per-click means that the email sender or website scores money out of their sponsors).
Can you give us an idea what type of computing device and operating system you are using? Also, which web browser?
My knowledge of how these work in is minimal and I have not had the misfortune to encounter them for over a year. I used to think it was something designed into the html coding of individual webpages. Many emails are in html format, to make them loom like a webpage.
The fact that the clickable words "followed" you to your banking page is very worrying and makes me think that a thing called a "browser helper object" (BHO) has installed itself on your computer. This means this annoyance will follow you everywhere. "Clearing" all the green boxes by clicking each and every one of them achieves nothing (but pay-per-click means that the email sender or website scores money out of their sponsors).
Can you give us an idea what type of computing device and operating system you are using? Also, which web browser?
You have some serious problems - the first thing I would do is download adblockplus and the yahoo advert blocker. There will get rid of the visible ads. There is a very strong chance you may have allowed a virus in and neither of those two programs you mentioned are, in my opinion, up to the job. Download a Norton Trial and run cleanup followed by a FULL system scan. This should clear any of the more tenacious issues. Please consider a full Norton purchase properly set up there is nothing to touch it ( with the greatest respect to other users here) I`ve used it for umpteen years and never had a virus. if you havent heard delete Adobe Flash Player and relaod only from their homepage.
@ukbod2015
Also with the greatest respect are you going to warn the OP of the problems arriving from having virus scan software fighting with each other for control of background monitoring at boot up and at every file access or should I?
Oops, seems I just have. What if they are signed up to AVG for over a year, yet?
My AV is not Norton and I have, similarly, never suffered virus problems. I'm sure it is perfectly good as a product and will say nothing against it. If anyone had gripes about it (or any other AV prog) they'd be on the internet and easily searchable.
Clarification: Malware Bytes does not conflict with antivirus products, so the above warning does not apply to it (ttbomk).
Also with the greatest respect are you going to warn the OP of the problems arriving from having virus scan software fighting with each other for control of background monitoring at boot up and at every file access or should I?
Oops, seems I just have. What if they are signed up to AVG for over a year, yet?
My AV is not Norton and I have, similarly, never suffered virus problems. I'm sure it is perfectly good as a product and will say nothing against it. If anyone had gripes about it (or any other AV prog) they'd be on the internet and easily searchable.
Clarification: Malware Bytes does not conflict with antivirus products, so the above warning does not apply to it (ttbomk).
-- answer removed --
-- answer removed --
@methyl
I was working towards suggesting using Malware Bytes Chamaeleon but, to give the right instructions for that, I needed the hardware/OS/Browser info.
(I use Chamaeleon whenever the database update inexplicably fails, at the last second).
Your mention of Safe+Networking mode is a novel idea to me. Are you suggesting that is best for *routine scans* or is that a specific response to an active infection, like we have here?
I was working towards suggesting using Malware Bytes Chamaeleon but, to give the right instructions for that, I needed the hardware/OS/Browser info.
(I use Chamaeleon whenever the database update inexplicably fails, at the last second).
Your mention of Safe+Networking mode is a novel idea to me. Are you suggesting that is best for *routine scans* or is that a specific response to an active infection, like we have here?
What an exceptionally helpful bunch you all are out there!
Thanks for each and every one of your responses, and for the actions you've suggested. I've not had time yet to work on any of them, other than running another full AVG scan - which doesn't seem to have made any difference. At the end, it said '0 threats detected', but the tags are still there.
I'm having so much time wasted by the problems with this computer that it's going to take me a while to get anything done. As I said, it's been getting slower and slower recently, and keeps crashing. It takes ages to reboot it, and switching it off and back on again is the only way to deal with it when it refuses to scroll or change page, and keeps giving me 'not responding' at almost every key press or mouse click.
I'm not a very computer literate chap - my only brief training was a short course run by my local library in 1999, which only taught me the basics of operation. The computer I have is an ex-internet café machine. For about 10 years I was a regular customer at my local shop, but unfortunately, in 9/13, they closed, and there was no nearby alternative. But the owner was grateful to me for my long-standing custom, and for my reliability in manning the front desk for short periods - so when they closed, they gave me one of their machines which, he told me, had been completely cleaned up of all the rubbish that had got into it from years of use by customers.
It worked reasonably well for about 6 months, but eventually started giving problems. I have no instruction manual, and the questions that some of you have asked about which system I have, I cannot answer clearly, and many of the terms involved mean little to me. I can only tell you that it is a very heavy machine, with no clearly identifiable branding other than Microsoft. The browser? Well, I think if I tell you I'm using Mozilla Firefox, that's probably the answer to that one. But what system? I have no idea! Sorry I can't be more helpful there - I was just given this machine, for which I was very grateful in my long-term benefits claimant status, and all I've done is use it the best way I know how. Maybe I've accessed a little too much porn... which I know can draw in all sorts of malware - but I use it mainly for YouTube, Amazon, Discogs, Google, Wikipedia and the websites of the BBC and the other main broadcasters.
I also have thousands of pictures and URL links saved to both my e-mail and desktop, which I'm told may be overloading the memory. I'm told that I should save all the stuff on my desktop to a USB stick - but nobody ever showed me how to do that!
So I'm not sure which piece of advice you've given me would be the best to follow. I'm concerned that I may get myself tangled up in a situation which I don't know how to get out of if I try, and possibly end up losing all sorts of saved information in so doing. A friend who lives near me has suggested that I go for a 'system restore', to reset the machine to a point before these 'ad tags' appeared. Any thoughts on that one?
I still have the number of one of the guys who ran the internet café, who told me to call him if I had any problems with the machine, so I'm going to call his number soon, and see what he has to offer. He was usually pretty good at getting all the overused (and abused) machines in the shop to behave themselves!
So thanks once again to all of you for your helpful suggestions - I'm sure that somewhere in there, there is a solution - it's just going to be a question of finding the one that works, while not getting some further problem that's going to wipe out all my files and saved stuff.
I'll post an update of how things go. All the best.
Thanks for each and every one of your responses, and for the actions you've suggested. I've not had time yet to work on any of them, other than running another full AVG scan - which doesn't seem to have made any difference. At the end, it said '0 threats detected', but the tags are still there.
I'm having so much time wasted by the problems with this computer that it's going to take me a while to get anything done. As I said, it's been getting slower and slower recently, and keeps crashing. It takes ages to reboot it, and switching it off and back on again is the only way to deal with it when it refuses to scroll or change page, and keeps giving me 'not responding' at almost every key press or mouse click.
I'm not a very computer literate chap - my only brief training was a short course run by my local library in 1999, which only taught me the basics of operation. The computer I have is an ex-internet café machine. For about 10 years I was a regular customer at my local shop, but unfortunately, in 9/13, they closed, and there was no nearby alternative. But the owner was grateful to me for my long-standing custom, and for my reliability in manning the front desk for short periods - so when they closed, they gave me one of their machines which, he told me, had been completely cleaned up of all the rubbish that had got into it from years of use by customers.
It worked reasonably well for about 6 months, but eventually started giving problems. I have no instruction manual, and the questions that some of you have asked about which system I have, I cannot answer clearly, and many of the terms involved mean little to me. I can only tell you that it is a very heavy machine, with no clearly identifiable branding other than Microsoft. The browser? Well, I think if I tell you I'm using Mozilla Firefox, that's probably the answer to that one. But what system? I have no idea! Sorry I can't be more helpful there - I was just given this machine, for which I was very grateful in my long-term benefits claimant status, and all I've done is use it the best way I know how. Maybe I've accessed a little too much porn... which I know can draw in all sorts of malware - but I use it mainly for YouTube, Amazon, Discogs, Google, Wikipedia and the websites of the BBC and the other main broadcasters.
I also have thousands of pictures and URL links saved to both my e-mail and desktop, which I'm told may be overloading the memory. I'm told that I should save all the stuff on my desktop to a USB stick - but nobody ever showed me how to do that!
So I'm not sure which piece of advice you've given me would be the best to follow. I'm concerned that I may get myself tangled up in a situation which I don't know how to get out of if I try, and possibly end up losing all sorts of saved information in so doing. A friend who lives near me has suggested that I go for a 'system restore', to reset the machine to a point before these 'ad tags' appeared. Any thoughts on that one?
I still have the number of one of the guys who ran the internet café, who told me to call him if I had any problems with the machine, so I'm going to call his number soon, and see what he has to offer. He was usually pretty good at getting all the overused (and abused) machines in the shop to behave themselves!
So thanks once again to all of you for your helpful suggestions - I'm sure that somewhere in there, there is a solution - it's just going to be a question of finding the one that works, while not getting some further problem that's going to wipe out all my files and saved stuff.
I'll post an update of how things go. All the best.
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