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Is This Happening To Anyone Else

EastTexFrank

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Yesterday something strange happened to my computer.

All of a sudden I started getting small, 2" pop up videos of advertisments appearing in the bottom right hand corner of the monitor. They are as annoying as hell but I can't find a way of shutting them off.

The pop up blockers and security progs are active, it affects Firefox and Chrome, it is using Flashplayer, I've run Malwarebyes and found nothing, I've looked at what has been installed automatically in the last couple of days and there's nothing obvious.

Also, while reading text, certain words and phrases are underscored in red. Running the cursor over those words again leads to a pop up advertisement. This happened once before and I found out how to get rid rid of it but, for the life of me, I can't remember what I did.

If anyone has an answer, please let me know.
 

Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
You might try CCcleaner. It sure sounds like the kind of stuff cccleaner and adaware or Malwarebytes takes care of. But if one did not get it try the others. Plus, I would turn off Java unless you have an app you know of that needs it. I turned off Java in the spring of 2012 and have not missed anything. i was not sure if any of my apps used it but so far all has worked with it being shut off.
 

EastTexFrank

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Thanks Doc, I may have found it. I think it was an extension installed yesterday called Toparcadehits 1.0. I don't know where it came from or got past all the blockers and adware protection but it did. Ever since I diabled it and uninstalled it the annoying little advertisements seem to have disappeared. Fingers crossed.

I never thought about disabling Java. Maybe I'll try that next. At least it might stop the daily update pop ups for it. :biggrin:
 

EastTexFrank

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
I looked it up here: http://download.cnet.com/TopArcadeHits/3000-2121_4-75912245.html#rateit Yep it's a Highjacker - people hate it. If it keeps giving you problems maybe you could do a system restore?

I don't know if this works but I also found this: http://botcrawl.com/how-to-remove-the-top-arcade-hits-virus/ Good luck, I hope you get rid of it.


Thanks Catavenger, you nailed it. I spent a lot of the day trying to find out how this booger got on my computer but couldn't find anything.

I was on CNET on Saturday downloading a free photomanager called Picasa. It must have piggybacked in on that download or was one of those checked boxes on CNET that you overlook and download unwanted, useless shit on to your computer. CNet really needs to clean up its pages. They get more confusing every time you go on there. It's as if they are designed to get you to download stuff you don't intend to or don't want.

I think that everyting is ok. I disabled it. I uninstalled it and cleaned out every reference to it in the register. Everything seems to be back to normal. It is a pisser though. I am usually so careful about downloading stuff from the internet and I still got bit.
 
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Catavenger

New member
SUPER Site Supporter
That helps us by letting us know about Cnet. I alway had thought that was a good site but no more. I had also seen that Picasa somewhere & thought of downloading it. Glad I didn't.
 

leadarrows

Member
This works well.
http://www.exterminate-it.com/


Exterminate it! Application for the comprehensive detection and removal of trojans, rootkits and other malware, capable of efficiently safeguarding your PC even against the most recent and previously unknown (undetected) threats!
Exterminate rootkit, worms, trojans and other malware with just a couple of clicks!
Easy-to-use. Fast. Reliable.

You can use the free version if you are OK with deleting the files it finds in your registry manually. I can do it so...so can you. It finds stuff the others don't. Kim Komando recomends it. http://www.komando.com/

Checkout the free downloads on her site.
 

EastTexFrank

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
That helps us by letting us know about Cnet. I alway had thought that was a good site but no more. I had also seen that Picasa somewhere & thought of downloading it. Glad I didn't.

I think that CNET is still a good site it's just that if you are on there looking for a free download, you click the button and end up on another page with another 3 or 6 buttons that say "click to download". You have to be very careful or you end up clicking the wrong button and installing something on your computer that you don't want or don't need. Also when you authorize the download there are often other check boxes that authorize them to install other programs or crap on your computer as well as the program that you DO want to download. I think that's what happened in this case. I missed one of the check boxes and didn't deselect it so Toparcadehits 1.0 was downloaded along with the program that I did want.

Picasa is pretty impressive by the way for organizing photos.

Thanks for the other cleaning programs. I've bookmarked them for future use. No doubt this crap will happen again.
 
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