Whatever this thing is. It’s really nasty. Neither Ad-ware, Search and Destroy and any other spyware busting program out there works on it. Although I have swapped with Mozilla, it is able to open new tabs in that, as well as automatically opens my IE.
It’s called: pwnage Clans And hacks
In order to get rid of it, I have to go into my directory and delete files.
Here is a message board convo about it.
I am trying to follow the directions, but it’s difficult to run anything when browser windows keep popping up and crashing, and your computer is working at crawling speed.
I am very sulky about it, if anyone has any brigher ideas about this. I would so apreiciate it.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
Well, apart from recommending those two bits of software…nothing much else.
The problem with a lot of these fixes posted up on forums is that the time it takes to do all these things, and unless you know what you are doing, it’s often better to backup all your stuff as best as possible, and format and reinstall the operating system on your hard drive.
It’s extreme, and you would still have to use a virus scanner, firewall programme (suggest ZoneAlarm), ad-aware, S&D, after the install on your backup files to check to a reasonable degree that you were clean.
Not recommended, but when the frustration hits a critical point, it might be worth considering.
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A couple of suggestions. Hope it helps.
1. Disconnect from the Internet before you do anything.
2. Disable IE. I’m not sure if there’s a proper way of doing this other than renaming the file; but I’d rename it (c:\program files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe) to something else to stop it from opening.
3. Do the “repair” in Safe mode. Press the “F8” key before you see the Windows boot-up screen. If you do it right, you should see a text-based menu instead of a Windows boot-up screen. Choose “Safe mode” from the menu.
4. Are you familiar with DOS command? Use the Windows boot-up disk to boot your PC and delete the files in MS-DOS (not sure if that works). If you don’t have a boot-up disk, try doing it in Command Prompt.
Quick DOS Reference:
change directory: cd
list files: dir
delete file: del
remove directory: rmdir
help: help or help
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BTW, the command to show all files including hidden files in a directory is “dir /a”
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Alternatively, go to start menu, go to run, type in “msconfig” without the quotes, then go to the “Services” tab, or “Start-up” tab, and disable all the services from starting up. But then again, you need to know what you are disabling. (The theory is you should be able to disable everything except for systray).
Another alternative is to do start menu, go to run, and type “regedit”. Then open the folders HKey_Local_Machine ==> SOFTWARE ==> Microsoft ==> Windows ==> Run. Then check to see which registry entries look suspicious and possible remove them.
BUT again…do a google and try to find out more info. Both of these solutions aren’t recommended at all unless you are absolutely sure about what you are doing; prepared to reinstall your OS; backed up all your data or all of the above.
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I second what commenter no.2 said. Use safemode (F8) as that prevents pretty much all non-critical services from starting. It’s a butt ugly way of working (personally I’d rather do it in a terminal/command prompt) but it’ll get it done.
In safemode delete those files, and then reboot.
After you’ve done that, use Mozilla and avoid IE like the plague. 😉
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i agree
I used f8 at startup, went into last known safe mode, got rid of all my internet connections, adn then rebooted. I re installed mozilla and internet explorer and then I bought ZoneAlarm. works.
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Argh! Argh! Argh!
Thank you.
Yan
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Wow, what great advice! I need to try these things. I’ve been having adware/spyware problems since May. I’ve used adware, search and destroy, and PestPatrol but I can’t get rid of these nasty things. (I think I have something different from yours, but I’m not at my home computer right now and I don’t know offhand.) Good luck to you!
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Yan, I left a msg for you in yahoo mail. Please check it out and reply me. Thank you.
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