Yesterday my computer crashed.

When it came back on my homepage had changed from Google search to Acer's homepage. Mozilla had reinstalled itself. I removed Mozilla because it continually crashed my computer after previous installs.

I cannot uninstall Mozilla or AVG which seems to be becoming scumware in itself. System restore no longer works apparently because a antivirus programme won't let it.

Any ideas ?

Yep, probably.

Get an AVG removal prog online...start there. Also y*hoo does this sort of thing.

Get Malwarebytes and Iobit Malwarefighter, do updates and run both. There is also an uninstaller with Malwarefighter which will get rid of most things.

Get Avast! register and run.

I could probably sort it but need to be hands-on.

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Downloaded an updated version of Malwarebytes. It found things that Spybot swore weren't there. Naughty Spybot. It seems that Mozilla was reinstalled at the same time that Adobe automatically updated itself.

Could be coincidental as there's no complaints online about Adobe doing this.

Will try and shift shitty AVG after the Chelsea game.

Thanks Ba

P.S.

If and when you download Malware Fighter...at the 'install' stage, check 'custom install' and uncheck all the other boxes else it will shovel a load of krap in at the same time.

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Exactly - that is correct.

Uncheck all the automatic updates, all of them ! Then pick the middle button, that advises you when an update is available. Then you control the intall.

These wretched gremlins creep in when an auto download fails, and is then restarted by a Re-direct virus. JSredirect is a nasty piece of work. When you get a virus in svchost.exe, sys restore merely restores the virus. If using XP or Win7 you have to turn off the mirror (the restore folders) otherwise the thing is written in that folder when the sys saves your settings.

Good luck, I wish you the best of luck. I don't know any AV programme that can actually replace an infected DLL sys file with an original clean one in exactly the right place. They will repair data files of course.

Goose, I think you should invite Ba over for afternoon tea. More messing about with restore or deleting your current AV programme will mean that every time you go online to get a new version, you will go to that link where the virus is resident. A reconfig and rebuild will be necessary if you don't get a tech guy in soon.

As I say - Good Luck.

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Duncan

Mr G have you fixed the situation ? If you have, you've done brilliantly under pressure.

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Duncan

1600 + bikes went over the old bridge last Sunday in an annual charity event...'Hoggin the Bridge'.
2 lanes designated bikes only with permanently raised barriers.
Public out to watch, and end up at the racecourse for fetes and fairs.

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Blimey....that was hard work.

AVG is finally gorn. Sly bugger would not let me remove it unless I proved that I had administrative authority to do so. No idea how to do that, so, after hours searching through various geek forums ( the use of the word geek is entirely their own...I think they're all lovely ) I stumbled across a link to an uninstaller for AVG, on, would you believe, AVG's own website.

Worked lovely.

Malwarefighter kept crashing during download. Avast downloaded ok but after downloading, several live sites like Spread Ex didn't work properly but did after removing Avast. Have replaced Avast with Avira which seems to be settling in nicely.

Adobe Flash was the main problem. It disappeared somewhere. I was prompted first by Avast and then later by Avira to update it. So I did. Since reinstalling Flash I haven't crashed once.

System restore is working again but does not remove Mozilla however Mozilla does not work when I try and open it so seems harmless.

Complete scans by Malwarebytes and Avira show a clean system.

I will have another go at downloading Malwarefighter.

If the above sounds intelligent, pay no attention, I put my success in resolving the problem down to blind tinkering and the Bristol Castrol GTX shandy drinking society for elderly bikers.

Well done Mr G, nice work, even if you reckon it was a bit random

I have kept the free version of Malwarebytes on the desk top - they are good people. Flash player was last week, 10 days ago now.

G, I hope you've changed your update settings - "to inform me when" ? There is a new Java update, may be you've got it, without knowing it . . . .

Cheers

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Duncan

Yes, nothing will download without my permission. Except Bing toolbar which I just found.

I'm not sure if I had a virus. Malwarebytes did remove a lot of PUP's but reinstalling Flash seems to have solved nearly all. I wish I could get rid of Mozilla but it's doing no harm at the moment.

Have removed Spybot as it seems useless by comparison to MB.