Malware from Hell
You've been there before -- called to rescue a friend's computer from the brink of death. Here's a case that made me wish I had latex gloves. Over 400 pieces of adware, rogue processes popping ads in front of ads, and a Startup folder crammed with crapware.
It looked bad from the start. The computer was barely usable, and it had just booted up.
The good souls at Lavasoft could massacre a few villages and still have karma to spare. The free version of AdAware cleaned 435 objects before I even updated the malware database.
But the mutant marketing wares weren't going down without a fight. Here a hidden process pops up an ad for a firewall, even as I am trying to download a firewall to cut off its nutrition source. (Thanks, Zone Labs!)
If testing your patience were not enough, you have to clear a few more hurdles to uninstall the rest of the crapware.
Even after knocking down all but a handful of Windows processes and scrubbing the Program Files folder (and a few reboots), there was still an occasional popup, but at least the computer was usable. There are a few more shots in the gallery.
It looked bad from the start. The computer was barely usable, and it had just booted up.
The good souls at Lavasoft could massacre a few villages and still have karma to spare. The free version of AdAware cleaned 435 objects before I even updated the malware database.
But the mutant marketing wares weren't going down without a fight. Here a hidden process pops up an ad for a firewall, even as I am trying to download a firewall to cut off its nutrition source. (Thanks, Zone Labs!)
If testing your patience were not enough, you have to clear a few more hurdles to uninstall the rest of the crapware.
Even after knocking down all but a handful of Windows processes and scrubbing the Program Files folder (and a few reboots), there was still an occasional popup, but at least the computer was usable. There are a few more shots in the gallery.