Free and Clear

[JK]

It's such a wonderful feeling, after hours of treatment and hard work and perserverance, to finally be rid of the Home Search Assistant...

If I could have one wish, it would be to have the assh*le, hijacking SOB that wrote that little bit software alone in a room with an industrial vise for just five minutes...

Five minutes is all I ask...

[Matthew]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
industrial vise

[/ QUOTE ]

Which vise would you use? Cocaine? Cigarettes? Women?

[Threadkiller]

Miami?

[Zens_7s]

Speaking of Miami, there is a town that scares me. I have never flown into an airport where I swear the plane went to far and ended up in Costa Rica. You seriously need a passport to land there.

[JK]

You're thinking of vice... but I guess to some the whole S&amp;M thing is a vice, so I guess that would be the one I use, but something that exerts 40k lbs force per square inch would be more effective for what I have in mind.

I've never been to Miami, but a year and a half in Orlando kind of turned me off to Florida- dodging old farts while driving ain't my cup o' tea.

[freetoaster]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
dodging old farts while driving ain't my cup o' tea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Call me crazy, but I like to fart in my cup o' tea while driving in my dodge.

"I-slay-me"

[bwdial]

That's why we used to have a bumper sticker that said...

Will the last American leaving Miami please turn out the lights and bring the flag.

There are many areas of Miami where English isn't even spoken. All signs, street and otherwise, are in Spanish.

[Matthew]

My bad.

I have always gotten those 2 mixed up. I am not sure why...

[JK]

No bad- I had to double check the dictionary before I posted- one of those words I hardly use and never write. I haven't been in a machine shop in years and I haven't watched Don Johnson in over a decade... I am looking forward to the eventual release of the DVD's, though. Fond memories of Miami Vice and cheese enchiladas from the Derby on a Friday night (I was only 12)

[karmattack]

http://home.comcast.net/~munkychum/clippybond.jpg

[Razorback]

The evil paperclip from hell!

[Jason_Brown]

Life got much better, when I figured out how to turn off that little bastard. (That, and auto-correct.) /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

[Dave]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
It's such a wonderful feeling, after hours of treatment and hard work and perserverance, to finally be rid of the Home Search Assistant...


[/ QUOTE ]

What is the "Home Search Assistant"?

[TLS]

I like the kitty! /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

[DarthMaulRat]

Hmm, I've been fighting a battle against the ShopNav Error Page Assistant. It's still on my Computer somewhere, but I've corrected enough registry files to make it sterile. The annoying thing is that this program tries to block any pages that contain information on how to uninstall it. I really need to get anti-virus software.

[karmattack]

If you know enough to do a regedit, then you probably already did this.....but it has to be said. Make sure to create a backup of your registry before you edit.

So is this the latest trojan going around? I've had to resolve three of those things. One was on my sister's home computer. I hope my brother-in-law fully appreciates the fact that I didn't narc him out to my sister for pr0n surfing on "her" computer.

[Jason_Brown]

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I like the kitty!

[/ QUOTE ]

Uhhhh... ummm... I like the kitty, too? /forums/images/icons/confused.gif

[TLS]

Um, sorry to be confusing. The kitty is an optional Paper Clip helper assistant thingy, for those who don't care for paper clips.

[Jason_Brown]

Ah. I just turned the @#$%er off. I never checked to see if there were any variants. /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

[DarthMaulRat]

Backup? Yes, I know. Sort of. Okay, I kinda forgot to.

Actually, I've been neglecting doing anything right on my computer.

I went on a deleteathon through my registry once without backing up, but frankly, my computer is too screwed up to get much worse. My hard drive is degrading, so I have all my major files backed up. I'm just riding this computer out until winter break, where I'll have enough time to build a new one from scratch (no more brand name for me, thank you). That and I'm going to get a new starter for my car and replace that. Oh, and my sound system needs new speakers. And I'm going to find some places to intern at. And I need to practice using Final Cut Pro.

Yep, nothing like a relaxing Winter break.

[JK]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
What is the "Home Search Assistant"?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a new version of the CoolWebSearch hijack- it changes your home page and makes it to where you actually have to type the http colon slash slash when going to any web site. I think it only attacks Microsoft Internet Explorer, but it was a massive pain in the ass- it worked by running multiple data streams that replicated in a new place when one source was removed- getting rid of it was like playing Whack-A-Mole, you hit one and three more of the little bastards would pop up. Before I got rid of the damn thing, it was running some 17 extra processes- now I feel like I have a new computer. Fast like a rabbit.

Oh yeah- that little paper clip? I nuked that little *@#&amp;$%?! loooonng ago and took his hide to the taxidermy man...

[Dave]

Oh, man i think one of our computers at work has that thing, it changed the homepage to this search engine looking page, and it won't "delete" no matter how many "Adaware" type programs you run.

[JK]

Yeah, it sucks. Every computer at my last job had it. And too, if you go into Add/Remove Programs, this crap has installed something called Shopping Wizard and some other variation... if you try to uninstall it from there, it redirects you to a web page and asks for your email and then tries to get you to download uninstall software, which only installs the hijack deeper into your computer. A real pain in the ass.

I found this page:

Killing the Home Search Assistant (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/tutorial85.html)

Pass it on to your engineers or whoever else may be infected.

On a side note, I just can't f*cking spell today... I have to preview my post like 20 times. I need some caffeine...

[Threadkiller]

Auto Format is the thing that killed me. Once I got that shut off I was much happier.

[karmattack]

Ah HAH! Pr0n surfing at work, eh??

I'm kidding.





But seriously.

I've found that running Norton Antivirus, and disabling System Restore and running Spybot, Adaware, then doing some minimal regedits solves the problem fast. The reg entries get out on the net pretty quickly, but it takes some looking around. But if you don't do it all at once, it's like jk said.....it's a game of wack-a-mole. The typical virus right now will usually replace or add .dll files to your System32 folder, which System Restore will constantly protect and regenerate.

[Dave]

Dude, Fuck all that Preview noise. I think we will forgive you for a day (and a Friday at that) where you have a few gramatical errors and spelling malfuntions.

[ratm1966]

I think I will have to side with JB on this one, because the first thought in my mind when you said you liked the kitty was sexual. Didn't anyone esle besides us wind up in the gutter on this one?