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Know how to remove About:blank spyware?

18 years ago

Does anyone know how to remove About:blank spyware that has managed to get into my computer and make life miserable especially when I'm trying to copy links. I'm not computer savey so if you think you can help, speak using simple words. Thanks so much for any help you can give.

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Comments (6)

owbist
18 years ago
Your computer appears to have been hijacked.

There are no 'simple' solutions to this one I am afraid. Read the link I provided and see how you feel about following those steps. The only difference I would make to those suggestions is to not use the RegLite program they say to use. Instead use RegSeeker which is free and a known safe program. RegLite may be safe but I have not heard of it that is the reason I am nervous about it. Perhaps another reader here will have some info on RegLite and whether it is a safe program.

Read the fix line by line, do not look at the whole thing and feel overwhelmed. Going through one line at a time makes it far less intimidating
brutuses
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks but, you forgot to post the link.
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it is a breach of privacy, just because he is your husband does not give him the right to invade your or anyone else's privacy, if he is reading your correspondence and you are not just talking to your self then there is another person involved and he is breaching THEIR privacy also. They can certainly sue him. does he have access to YOUR pc? does he have access to your Admin account on your pc?? if so change that immediately. I simply can not even imagine a situation where I would ever allow any one to control me that way. These kinds of cases definitely are brought to court quiet often and they are not kind to the ones doing the spying. Illegally placing a keylogger on a persons computer with out their consent/knowledge is not taken lightly. There are ways to find and remove those programs but you will have to run some specific scans to locate all the files it has hidden they do a good job of hiding themselves. the number one rule in computer safety is NEVER ever use the same passwords for anything, change them often, and NEVER use real words, if you need to use a password generator which will produce secure hard passwords. And for heaven's sake never use a name of a pet or child or something someone would automatically think to try. Using a combo of part of your name with part of your phone number or part of your birthdate can often be used but not in a case like this. for example a good strong password would be RA54&44daYyY use at least 8 letters/symbols upper and lower case. strong password
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the confusing thing with about:blank is it can be a legit response to having your homepage set to blank that instance if perfectly fine, then there is a nasty malware that incorporates an about:blank instance, that one is often very hard to get rid of, and it now appears this one you have found is yet another variable which may not be part of that nasty malware (coolwebsearch) but is some kind of ad link. It is pretty confusing. about:blank = the URL interpreted by most web browsers as the command to display a blank HTML document I think if it were me I would just avoid weather.com for now. If you are showing clean with all your scans I think you are ok. Just in case your IE is not set up this way you might want to check and make sure. This is for IE 6.0. For other browsers, check microsoft or your browsers developer. # Go to tools --> Internet Options and select Advanced tab. UN-check "Enable Install On Demand" and "Allow Software To Run or Install". That is UN-check! # Go to security tab --> Internet --> Custom Level. Set " Download Unsigned Controls ' and " Initialize and Script Active-X controls not marked as safe " to Disable. Set ' Download Signed Controls ' to Prompt. If you are not experiencing your actual homepage being hijacked and changed to about:com then I don't think you have the coolwebseach variant.
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System secure? Absolutely. Scared of the dark? Never. Quality protection? Priceless. Experienced members are just that, experienced. They know how to obtain and how to ferret through material to make an informed decision. This forum has members like any other forum who are minimally experienced users and newbies who already want to scan for this and scan for that everyday. They want to scan in the morning. They want to scan at night. Some want to run two anti-virus applications. If their system burps they go on line and do a "free" scan. They want to restore or reinstall because they think they have something malicious. It's not that they are paranoid, they are just concerned in protecting their systems and inexperienced in doing so. God knows we were all in their position at one time, and still are in some categories. I couldn't tell you anything about .html as I have never had a desire to study it so in that vein after all these years I am still a newbie. As experienced members it is our responsibility to when asked clarify, teach, and suggest regarding all phases of computering. It is not for us to contribute to their fear. I read a lot and I am quite comfortable in reporting I have heard a recommendation to scan daily for malicious 'ware only once before. Does that make me right? Of course not. However, it does comment on the need. I wish I could give the member his/her due as I am quoting but unfortunately I don't remember who posted " ...the best anti virus protection is in between your ears..." I expand this thought to 'ware protection. DA
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THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! Your advice worked and my computer is almost back to normal. Goldie: that was my first thought, too (LOL)! Mary Lu, it wasn't you at all; just me trying to do too much :~) I basically just followed Camp56 and Ideefixe's instructions and it worked! I can't thank you both enough for taking the time to walk me through it!! Rose: the thumb drive idea is a good one for future problems. I never would have thought of that. Thanks! Olychick: you know, I'm embarrassed to say that I had no idea about that Restore feature. In the past, whenever I've had a problem DH has fixed it for me. I need to be more proactive. Allison: thanks for those recommendations. WIP: yes, they use a small outside IT firm; nobody in-house except DH. I was going to call them next if I couldn't find a solution here. Oakley: you're kidding?!? I made a mistake earlier saying that I deleted Norton, it was MacAffee, which I've had for quite a while. It ran every day, scanning for problems but never found a one . . . and I KNEW something was wrong before all of this. That's why I was looking for anti-virus programs. Hmmmmm. Graywings: Thanks! I'd forgotten that GW even had a computer forum and had never checked it out. But, I will definitely keep it on mind for future problems. Chickadee: Haha . . . that's for sure! DH would flip out if I screwed up his computer! Camp56: thanks for mentioning that about the two programs. That's good to know as I wasn't sure. Thanks again for all your help. It worked!!!! Lynn
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ravencajun Zone 8b TX
18 years ago
not sure if this is the link owbist was going to post or not but it is the link to the pc hell fix page for the about:blank issues.

Here is a link that might be useful: about:blank fix
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
18 years ago
the first thing I would try is to download the free version of superantispyware, update then run it and see if it gets rid of the problem or at least some of your problems.
Be sure you choose the free version. Once downloaded and installed hit the update button then select full scan allow it to fix anything it finds.

Here is a link that might be useful: superantispyware
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
18 years ago
Try going to Start, control panel, Add Remove programs and remove program called Search Assistant.

here are more links you might want to look at. Know that the about:blank issue is actually many many variants of actual problem, which is why it is so hard to clean.

about:blank

there is a tool specifically for all the variants of the CWS trojan, you can also get that and try it, you should get the stand alone version CWShredder.
cwshreder removal tool

I would try the CWShredder tool first to see if that might get rid of the variant you happen to have, I would then look in add remove programs to see if search assistant is there and remove that, also I would get the superantispyware program and run the scan and doing that update and scan at least once a week on your pc.

To prevent future problems get and install spywareblaster and spyware guard from java cool they are both free.
javacool software

and be very very careful which sites you visit.
owbist
18 years ago
Well, don't some mothers have foolish children? Sorry Brutus, one of those old age 'Sometimers' moments I had I suppose.

At least Ravencajun stepped in and saved the day.

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