Winfixer And Getting Rid Of It?

[spirit1flyer]

has anyone seen this pest?  and do you know how to get rid of it?

ZoneAlarm did not detect it so I downloaded something from microsoft and it finds some junk but does not remove them or detect winfixer.  I can do a search on my computer and turn up about 20 files with winfixer on it but nothing I have downloaded see's it  :blink:
it started out with a popup that looks like a internet explorer help message but when you try to close it, It takes you to a website to get more junk from.
Then this morning before I turn on my internet I got a new popup  :angry:


spirit

[leeor_net]

You've got what's called a Browser Hijacker (extension BHO most likely).

Look for the following tools:

KillBox
HijackThis
APM

(google Remove Stubborn Virus)

Follow the instructions on that page and you should be good.

You're going to want a more comprehensive set of protection tools. I personally use AntiVir (www.freeav.com) and AdAware. The two of them together work wonders.

Also, I don't know too much about ZoneAlarm but I do know that winfixer is an adware program so it's threat level is low and is not considered a virus by most virus scanning software. It is an annoyance and most good Anti Virus/Anti Ad/Malware will alert you to it.

Also, winfixer registers itself as a service so there is no way to really delete it unless you have a program like KillBox or HijackThis delete it as Windows starts up (more likely to be removed in Safe Mode).

Hope this all helped.

[Mez]

winfixer (i think is a prog) im sure i uninstalled it frm sum1 elses computer.  it was in the add/remove programs menu

[BlackBox]

Download a program called BHODemon.. it prevents Browser helper objects (BHO's) from loading.

BTW: the extension is rarely (if ever) .BHO; it's generally just a .dll file.

I think HijackThis just lists the different BHOs, etc on the system, but does nothing to fix them.

Removing system services: On win9x/Me there are no services.
On NT/2k/XP, go to the administrative tools control panel > Services.

It might not be listed, in this case go to start>run and enter msconfig

You can disable services from there so you can remove them. Be sure to choose selective startup so it actually disables it!

However BHOs aren't really loaded as an NT service, it's a DLL that's loaded as part of IE / Explorer really.

Also, easy way to protect yourself in the future: Stop using IE. Use a browser like Firefox, Opera, etc. These browsers will make it difficult (or impossible) to install BHOs.

www.getfirefox.com
www.opera.com

[spirit1flyer]

thanks guys for the help!

I will let you know what happens