How do I remove a virus I cant find?

A

audiobahn1000

Member
I have a pop up generator somewhere on my computer that is annoying the hell out of me. I cant get rid of it because none of my POS anti-spyware programs have been able to detect it accept for one. Spybot Search and Destroy found it along with 50 other things however I have to pay to remove it. Windows Defender, AVG anti virus, Ad-Aware SE Personal and Spyware Doctor cant detect any of the 50 infected files I have. So does anyone know of a useful free program that will detect these infected files?
 
Spybot S&D along with Spyware Doctor which places it's own "bots" until you buy the retail package are a lost cause! Grisoft's buy out of Ewido ended with the new AVG Anti-Spyware Remover found along with AVG 7.5 at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-spyware-free

Since you are familiar with AVG already you have another tool there. The first things to dunp are the Spybot S&D and of course the main culprit Spyware Infester(rather then Doctor). Someone recently pointed out the PC World article on another excellent freeware know as Spyware Terminator that includes a personal firewall. It's Vista ready as well. http://www.spywareterminator.com/
 
i just went through and found out that when i downloaded a file called "video activex". just today i updated my definitions and it corrected the problem
 
The video activex file you found there is a trojan. You can read the description of that as well as removal instructions at http://www.spynomore.com/trojan-zlob.htm?search=Video+ActiveX+Object

Don't confuse that with the video chat activex seen at http://www.viscomsoft.com/products/videochat/ But you are still better off with the spyware removers seen at the two links above. They generally prove effective over a period of time. The Spyware Doctor has been known as well as others like Webroot's Spysweeper for planting "uninvited guests" just so you have to buy the retail product to see them removed.
 
Have you uninstalled Spyware Doctor yet? I ran that briefly here and removed it fast as well as others tried out. If you have a more specific name or description there's always a removal tool. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...e0-e72d-4f54-9ab3-75b8eb148356&DisplayLang=en is Microsoft's own malicious software removal tool updated monthly.

Your IE setting will have a bearing on what is allowed. But due to the varying types of popups you want to review the information seen at http://www.answers.com/topic/pop-up-ad

Do you have any addon IE toolbars installed? Most commonly installed along with games and other softwares seem to open the door for adwares and trojans. If you don't mind going through a ton of shareware popup blockers seen at http://www.topshareware.com/guide/hot/popups.htm or posting a HiJack This log we can try some other ideas.
 
No I have no IE toolbars. I did a scan with Spyware Doctor and found over 280 problems that none of the other programs can find. No I havent removed the program because its the only one that can find anything!!!! the other programs are useless!!!
 
For Spyware Doctor to report some 280 "bugs" you should know that's to get you to buy the retail version! With that number of items "any other program" would have found at least several! It's a gimic or scam to sell. The other programs won't report stuff included in Spyware Doctor since they are part of the shareware version. Dump SD and try some others and see what if anything is actually found.
 
PC eye said:
For Spyware Doctor to report some 280 "bugs" you should know that's to get you to buy the retail version! With that number of items "any other program" would have found at least several! It's a gimic or scam to sell. The other programs won't report stuff included in Spyware Doctor since they are part of the shareware version. Dump SD and try some others and see what if anything is actually found.
Click to expand...

Well they give me the specific address of the files. The mnfg. is not gong to go and make the program just randomly call files viruses when they are not. And the file names do appear like names of mituculus files. Anyway like I said earlier I have scanned with MANY programs and found nothing. However there is still spyware on the computer because I still have a pop up generator somewhere.
 
Did you try the removal instructions seen for the video activex trojan that you mentioned earlier? As far as popup ads those are javascripts written into web sites themseilves for the most part. If you are frequenting certain sites regularly that problem will remain without a good blocker or even stopping all popup type windows with the security settings in IE.

When SD pointed out locations on the drive did you verify those by browsing the locations? Webroot's Spysweeper only found some 74 until that was uninstalled! The other place for a good sweep of the system is where you have a good "House Call" by Trend Micro. http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ This is a far more "valid" online scanner and you try out the 30day trial of PC-cillin that combines a list of removers.
 
These popups are generated. I can tell. For one I have a pop up blocker that blocks almost 100% of all popups that are not generated by a generator. Also the popups I am getting are scheduled. They happen specifically when I go to a new site or open a new browser. Never any other time. The pop ups have specific content. The content they contain is very similar to previous pop ups which proves the pop ups are not from sites. I also get them when visiting sites that do not have pop ups such as my email hosting service and eBay. So it’s defiantly a generator somewhere.

Some things has changed though. I downloaded some more anti-spyware programs and I did a scan with every one. I did a a scan with AVG anti-spyware, SpyCatcher, Ad-Aware SE, Spyware Terminator, Spybot S&D and Spyware Doctor. And this time EVERY SINGLE program found a Trojan or spyware threat. I removed all them. I did a second scan with Spyware Doctor and this time the scan came back clean. I did another scan with every other program and they all came back clean. However the generator is still there.

So I am wondering, if every single program found different threats, how useful are the programs? Because if you have 10 programs and they all find something different that means not one of them is working very well... That also makes me believe I may still have lots of other threats that havent been found.

Maybe I should just download every single anti-spyware program there is? I have 640 GB. of hard drive space and a 4 MBPS internet connection. What do you think?...
 
There's absolutely no Rolls Royce of programs to choose from no matter who makes it. I think you are finally starting to understand what I've said quite about getting familiar with "several" while not necessarily having them all running on your system. Some of the newer bugs are even "deeper rooted" then the other adbots. A trojan downloader will sit idle when you are busy running systems scans and not online. But once you are busy it gets busy!

Often there is only one particular value created in the registry to connect to a host site for "uninvited guests" to later arrive. This type of trojan will sit at the root of C. I presume you are still running IE 6 and haven't upgraded to IE 7 or simply run Firefox as the default browser.
 
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