"ad by name" - adware/malware

[afi]

Hi, guys I really need some help.

I'm using firefox and I'm getting on every page ads and pop-ups with the caption "ad by name".

I've tried everything I can think of to remove that shit including avast, adwcleaner, junkware removal tool, anti-malware, hitmanpro and eset online scanner but so far nothng helped. Obviously I also checked the firefox plugins and add-ons. If someone got an idea I would really appreciate it as my only other option is reinstalling my computer.

[Didz]

Open the Help menu from the main menu, click Troubleshooting Information, click "Refresh Firefox..." and confirm you want to reset the browser.

 

This will remove all add-ons and customisations, and reset the browser to its initial state. It'll keep your history and cookies intact though, so you won't need to log in everywhere again. All the old Firefox data will be put in a folder on your desktop as a backup.

 

Best to add your add-ons one-by-one afterwards, cause it's probably one of them that's causing the problem.

 

If this is still happening after resetting Firefox, you might have deeper malware that's hijacking your network traffic.

[Futuza]

What's the name of the adware you have?  Usually they redirect you to a search engine of some sort, what's the name of it?  Most of the common ones use a couple of tactics:

 

-Place an exe program to monitor changes to the registry and prevent you from changing search engines, default browser settings, add ons etc...

-Modify some registry data in order to make uninstalling the program and task killing it difficult (makes it always startup / spawns new processes if an active one is terminated etc)

-Actual changes to browsers (eg: add ons, default search engine changes), this can usually be fixed in firefox by opening about:config and searching for all strings with the name of the adware and reverting whatever it changed to default.

 

Usually fixing them requires doing it in the order I've listed above.  Possibly you have some really bad malware that Didz mentioned, which usually resides as a rootkit and will probably be easiest to remove by backing up files and wiping hard drive.  Usually adware is not malicious so most antivirus/malware programs won't detect it/consider it a problem, at most they'll find the exe and list it as a PUP (potentially unwanted program), but change nothing else.

[afi]

Thanks for the tips. Most of the time it's a link to "eFix pro". But sometimes it redirectes me to other pages as well. Resetting the browser didn't help.

The ads are changing but most of the time it's this one (which is an ad for anti-virus software):

 

http://i.imgur.com/vTlYQME.jpg

 

Most help pages (like http://www.fixyourbrowser.com/removal-instructions/ads-by-name-removal-instruction/ ) say that I should start with deinstalling all unwanted software. Problem is that I don't have any recently installed sofware that I could remove.

[Ping]

Sounds like a rootkit, yeah. The usual malware removal programs should have sufficed, but maybe you need specialized software to deal with it.

[afi]

After 2 days I have to say: Virus 1 : 0 Me

I'm gonna reinstall windows tomorrow. Thanks for the help though!

 

Edit: Actually I got rid of it now (I really hope forever...most annoying thing ever)... I reinstalled the browser and made a couple more anti-virus checks. Not sure what removed it in the end... probably several different things.

[Cerez]

That's usually how it goes. Out of curiosity, what antivirus software are you using? I find that Avira maybe somewhat annoying, but it gets the job done. And it's free.

 

Keep in mind to keep changing your antivirus software every year or so because their effectiveness wears off. Brands that used to be efficient five years ago are no longer fit for purpose.