Both the itunes store and Amazon sell white noise/natural sound tracks and albums for a nominal cost.

Personally, I find incessant white noise (like jet engine noise on an airplane) rather fatiguing and productive of a headache. How about listening to quiet music through cheap earbuds ? That's what I do, the $15 kind that fit in the ear are easily found and block most outside sounds. They'll last through 6 months of sweat and then need to be replaced.

"until did the download and was prompted to install something."

Does "did the download" mean you successfully downloaded the sound files? If so, do they have an "mp3" extension? If they do, have you tried dragging them onto your mp3 player and playing them?

"prompted to install something." By the browser? By Windows Media Player? Something else? When? During the download process or when you tried to play them? What exactly did it offer to install?

During the download dialogue, is it possible that you chose to "Open" the file instead of "Save" it? If so, try saving it.
{{gwi:2104996}}

I downloaded the mp3s from the page you linked and they play fine. I may even try one at bedtime. So thank you! :)

BTW, here's the link to the player that is used on that page: https://soundcloud.com/canton/sets/white-noise-sleepy-sounds Maybe you'll have better luck there, although truthfully, they should have downloaded just fine from the page you linked.

It looks like your player is designed to play mp3s, so I'm not sure why it isn't working for you.

First off, thanks much for the fast replies!

I can listen to the different tracks in my browser on the web page just fine & selected one of them.

When I click Download (using Firefox 24.0) my prompt only allows me to save this file:

Then I end up with ZipExtractorSetup.exe and not an mp3 file.

I was scared to open the zip file in the above picture. Guess I'm being overcautious?

No, you're not being overcautious. Do NOT open that! You used good judgement.

Edit: I'm trying to see why you're being offered one thing and I'm being offered another thing. In the mean time... delete that executable.

This post was edited by chuggerguy on Mon, Oct 7, 13 at 19:28

Hehe, I turned off Adblock Plus etc. and still don't really see where your download dialogue is coming from. In the mean time, I wouldn't trust that site, I mean if they'd pull that sort of... whatever. :)

Hey... do these work? :)

• noise-only.mp3

• noise-and-heartbeat.mp3

• noise-heartbeat-ambience.mp3

• noise-extra-loop.mp3 (Seamless loop)

I'm sure you know because you used good judgement before but... hover each one, inspect the URL in the status bar, make sure your mp3 really truly has an mp3 extension and not a zip/exe/bat/scr/whatever extension, and... you'll be ahead of 99.9% of folks that just click away. :)

Too late. I didn't open it & still got a virus about an hour and a half ago. Windows Live Mail went crazy and my inbox started duplicating itself until I clicked to work offline. My inbox on one mail account jumped from 300 to over 2200 while I watched the numbers spin. Now I can't get the program to go online at all.

Too much for this old & ill guy to deal with tonight. My normal bedtime was 45 min ago. I'm going to do a full scan with my virus program (why didn't it protect me??) and see what happens. I've noted my free hard drive space and will check in an hour or so to see if it goes down.

Quick question... should I delete that zip file that I downloaded and didn't open?

File deleted... should I empty the recycle bin?

Ouch. Sorry to hear that. Truthfully, I don't know enough about malware removal to help you deal with that. There's at least a couple good ones here that do though. In the mean time, I think I would just let the AV scan and see what it finds... and try to get a good nights sleep.

I would.

Edit: Despite my not being qualified to assist in malware removal, I'll give a couple thoughts, others can correct as necessary.

Since your AV didn't stop you from getting infected in the first place, it may very well not be trustworthy to remove the virus now that you have it.

A "System Restore" comes to mind. Simply restore to right before you got the virus? I don't know what the odds of success would be but I wouldn't think you'd have anything to lose trying.

Two recommendations I often see listed here in this forum:

Install, update, and run the free version of Malwarebytes: http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

As well as the free version of SuperAntiSpyware: http://www.superantispyware.com/download.html

This post was edited by chuggerguy on Mon, Oct 7, 13 at 22:20

Thanks much chuggergy for your replies...

So far have only tried a trial version of Malwarebytes and got this:

I wonder which ones to remove? One of them appeared with a check mark already in the box. 4 of them were created in the last two days. The one with a check mark is over a year old file.

I forgot to mention that a full scan with Kaspersky 13.01.4190 came up clean last night. Scanned over a million files & took over 6 hours.

Not going to do anything until hear from one of you...

This post was edited by john__showme__usa on Tue, Oct 8, 13 at 13:34

I won't try to advise you. I just wanted to say that I went to the site in your first image, coolzipextractorapp(dot)com, got a copy of ZipExtractorSetup.exe and pretty much just let it do/install everything it wanted to. I had something like 192 Malwarebytes detections, had zero beforehand, so... maybe you didn't do so bad afterall. :)

That said, I didn't use a real machine, did it in a virtual machine and took a snapshot first, so had nothing to lose.

Wait for more qualified help but this is what I did:

Updated and did a complete Malwarebytes scan. Knowing I had zero detections before installing the "junk", I let Malwarebytes delete everything it found.

I rebooted and did a second Malwarebytes scan, it found nothing that time.

I ran SuperAntiSpyware, it found nothing.

I looked in "Add/remove Programs", found a couple things that I forgot to take a screen shot of so I forget exactly what they were called. One was something like "DealPly", the other something like "Open-it" or maybe "Cool Zip extractor"? Anyway, I removed both.

I ran a Ccleaner registry scan and allowed it to fix what it found. I'm not recommending that but... that's what I did. :)

Possibly for no good reason, I ran adwcleaner and let it remove a couple "InstallCore" keys, a Firefox extension, etc.

But when it's all said and done, despite the fact I'm pretty sure it's clean, I'll revert back to the snapshot I took before I started. Personally, I think nothing beats the peace of mind of having a good backup.

Yeah... wait on someone more qualified, competent, and less confusing than I. ;)

John you do not need to wait for anyone smarter than Chuggerguy, he has got it perfectly!

He did something more people should do but fail miserably, he ran MWB, rebooted and ran again. Brilliant. Chasing corrupt files is not a race, it requires patience. Note he then very wisely ran Ccleaner, another good free program (stay on the free side if you download it)

As regards the infections, remove all of them. We mere mortals are not smart enough to differentiate between them except to know they are all PUP or Adware. The software is designed to know this stuff.

You appear to have installed the trial version of Malwarebytes, you should remove that, return to Chuggerguy's link and stay left clicking only n the free program

Thank you Owbist. :)

Thanks much for replies again!

When I opened Windows Live Mail this morning it duplicated emails in a hurry. I think only unread emails were duplicated. My unread emails went from a couple hundred to over 6,000 in a matter of minutes.

About an hour ago I decided to have MWB delete the first 5 files and then I rebooted. When I opened the mail program it didn't start duplicating so maybe is fixed.

Bedtime for Bonzo here & I'll run another scan tomorrow after downloading the free version of MWB. The trial version would not let me quarantine the last 2 malware files so they remain on my computer.

Thanks!

Actually John you might well have downloaded the free version but failed to remove the first of three check marks part way through the install process. I discovered this realising I had not installed MWB after wiping the drive on this confuser. During the install 3 options, all with check marks in place, are offered. The first is to 'try' the pro version, this I cleared off.

These days one has to pay attention during any program install to avoid surprises among the options offered.

Oh, I found how you got the download you did.

I wondered why a site with an excellent WOT rating would be tricking folks into downloading/installing adware. I blamed it on the site but probably was too hasty in my judgement.

The offer for the undesirable download was served by Google. So it could have been served on any site that uses Google Ads... and that includes Gardenweb.

{{gwi:2104999}}

That's not exactly the same one(I had it come up once but failed to get a capture), but it's the same deal. "Beware The Big Green Download Button!", you'll see it elsewhere.

So my curiosity is partially satisfied.

Except for this:
" My inbox on one mail account jumped from 300 to over 2200 while I watched the numbers spin."

Please don't think I've abandoned this thread. I have medical issues today and tomorrow that are taking all my time. Tomorrow afternoon might be my first chance to get back to this.

I'll post a short video that I took of the emails multiplying then.

And I'll have to find a way to delete the 6800 unread emails in my Windows Live Mail inbox.

Thanks for your understanding.

Good morning,

I'm back... finally.

Here is a short video I took while the unread emails were being duplicated: http://www.fototime.com/D3D05B0D9650B6B/convx264.mp4 Sorry about the poor quality. I was freaking out and didn't film long. As the numbers piled up the pace seemed to grow much quicker as time when on.

Whatever the virus was it seems to have been stopped. I still don't dare leave my email program on unattended.

What I would like to start with is to delete the unread emails and then turn my Carbonite backup program back on. I started deleting one email at a time and sending it to the Deleted items folder before emptying the folder, but is taking way too long. Is there some way I can delete all the unread email in one fell swoop? At the moment I have 6773 after deleting a few hundred one at a time.

Please bare with me. I'm not too swift and get easily confused. First want to solve this part & then will move on to the rest.

John

Interesting video. I've never seen anything like that. If I had have had to guess, I would have thought it was receiving mail and you were getting bombed. :)

But it seems to have happened to others as well:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/livemail-email/windows-live-mail-continued-issues-duplicate/22d3d165-60e1-4c20-9775-ac934698b30f?msgId=74bb9174-ed33-4fcf-9148-6ea163388d90

and

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/windows-live-mail-hundreds-of-duplicate-messages/d52b5445-4389-421b-a538-11fadfe2f807



As for an easier way to delete all your unread emails at once, from http://msgroups.net/microsoft.public.outlook.general/how-to-delete-all-emails-in/62867: "Press control-a to select all files and then press shift-delete to
permanently delete all"

sounds like it might work.

I could be wrong but I don't think the duplicating emails was caused by a virus, just a glitch of some sort... but like I say, I don't really know. Perhaps someone else will.

I concur with CG that your e-mail glitch was not caused by a virus. I had the same sort of thing happen once before, and, as far as I know, it was some sort of problem with the server, nothing to do with my computer at all.

Oh boy did I mess up!

Should have emphasized that I wanted to delete all the unread messages in an account inbox and not all the messages. So now I have to figure out how to restore the messages in the particular accounts Deleted Items folder. Fortunately I tried it on a very seldom used account and not the main one. Should have tried it on the combined accounts in the "Quick view"

Sorry!

Here is the good news... by doing the control-a thing after highlighting the Unread email in "Quick views" I was able to delete all the problem duplicate emails that were unread.

So thanks!

I'm going to take a breather now and try to calm down. Hope I was clear enough to be understood.

Update!

Forget about recovering that seldom used accounts Deleted Items folder. There were only a few emails that I want to save and was able to do that individually by selecting each one and moving to another folder.

Problem solved!

Next time I come back will go back to trying to download one of those mp3 files.

Thanks everyone!

Great news, thanks for the update John.

I think, just to be on the safe side, and to keep it simple, I'd use the direct links I posted up above:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/comphelp/msg1011482223523.html?22#GWCPostTitle5

Just right-click and "Save Target(or Link) As..." and enjoy. :)

Chuggerguy,

Thanks so much for all your help! I just saved all 4 of those mp3 files you posted to my music folder and will later drag and drop them to my little player.

Original mission accomplished!

You are a gem!!

You're welcome John. Enjoy some peace on the treadmill. I probably should do the same but have pedal biking seems to work for me. I don't think I want to drown out the sound of traffic though, obnoxious as it is. :)