I Got Hideous Lamprey Adware for the First Time in Years

[livius drusus]

This morning I awoke to a horror I haven't seen in a very long time, adware underscores all over the place. Obviously I didn't click them, but even so the popups soon followed and they were fucking bad, yo. Loop after loop, new tabs opening bullshit chat sessions with assholes so solicitous of the health of my PC, complete with audio warnings and assorted babblings.

It's been so long since I had to deal with this kind of infestation that I'm not up on the good tools, or any tools, for that matter, and searching was almost useless thanks to goddamn content flooding. Pages after pages of weirdo budget so-called bloggers and reviewers that are just fronts for whatever shitty cleaning software.

HijackThis didn't find it. FindFixer didn't find it. MalwareBytes didn't find it. Obviously Avast didn't find since that's my default protection. Finally I had to do a full uninstall of Chrome to kill the beast. The first time I tried resynching everything -- extensions, settings, etc. -- and the fucker came right back, so after I uninstalled and reinstalled a second time, I stuck with my precious, precious bookmarks and passwords. So far so good.

The source of the infection, as far as I could determine, was s.iktmmny.com. It's a few months old but there's almost nothing of use on the web about it.

So. Avast and I are breaking up. Any advice for AV freeware that actually works?

[Dingfod]

It's not perfect, but I still like Spybot Search & Destroy. The $13.99 annual membership version is much better though.

[slimshady2357]

I don't do much dodgy porn surfing or play 'mini-games' online. So my browsing is, in general, fairly safe. So take my recommendation with a pinch of salt, but I have never, ever had a problem with AVG free edition. Me, Sou and the girls have been using it for 10 years plus and never had a virus. The very, very occasional malware but I'm 99% sure that is because someone clicked on something an experienced user shouldn't click on (like a link in an email from some spam account).

I love it.

[Dingfod]

I'm pretty careful too, but a couple months back I got ransomware on my smartphone. Had to reset the phone and lose all my contacts, files, and pictures. Fortunately, everything but the contacts were already backed up. Lesson learned, all are backed up nearly daily now.

[BrotherMan]

I don't know what to tell you, livius. Maybe stay away from the dianoga infested compactors of the internet?

I've done well enough with just Microsoft Security Essentials. I did get got by something a year or so back. But I was able to handle it with a combination of Spybot, Malwarebytes and taking care of shit in safe mode.

[livius drusus]

Harumph. I'm EXTREMELY cautious. The only thing I downloaded yesterday was an update to my FTP client (Ipswitch WS_FTP) so I could upload Ymir blood's awesome FDR inauguration pamphlet. I've been using it for years and never had a problem. I don't game, I don't porn, I don't do anything but browse history sites. I am possibly the most boring Internets user in the world.

Since carrying over my extensions into the new Chrome install also carried over the infection, I assume the nasty was embedded in one of them, but again, I have maybe 6 or 7 and I've had them all a long time.

[But]

Ah, the joys of Microsoft Windoze. I dimly remember all that crap.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

If you use AdBlock Plus, a few months back they added a thing to allow "unobtrusive" advertising. Go into your settings for that and you'll see a tickbox.

I have a paid MalwareBytes subscription. It's very worth the money.

[Corona688]

Chrome is especially bad at this, its so difficult to clean your settings out, and most adware cleaners haven't caught up to it. Another casualty of the cloud.

[JoeP]

Far be it from me to stoop to Linux bragging (for which there are NO smilies!)

However, I think it's important, necessary even, to berate you for missing the correct smilie: