Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
It sounds like you did a Windows Reset. If the default installation image on your PC had Norton-whatever in it, you'll get it back when you do a reset as well.
Up to date Malware Removal
- Thread starter Mercutio
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ddrueding
Fixture
One of the things in the Startup Repair toolset is rolling back changes to the PC. I wonder if it rolled back far enough to restore Norton? Either way, killing it is the right move. Uninstalling should be enough to prevent it from running, which matters more than every file and registry entry.
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
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- Jan 27, 2002
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I didn't do anything but restart the computer. I didn't hit anything, or do any input. Found this very strange. I did do the uninstall, and deleted about 50 Norton Registry entries. That I did do..
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Fun true story: The same company, Gen Digital, owns Norton, AVG, Avira and Avast. It also owns Piriform, which makes Ccleaner. They're all now equally worthless.
Anyway, there's an official Norton Removal Tool that should be used instead of manually deleting registry entries. Failing that, definitely look at something like Revo Uninstaller instead.
Anyway, there's an official Norton Removal Tool that should be used instead of manually deleting registry entries. Failing that, definitely look at something like Revo Uninstaller instead.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
That is expected behavior. The tool exists to support a borked Norton install because the full set of manual removal instructions is multiple printed pages long.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
If you haven't done so in a while, maybe run Malwarebytes on your PCs. A crap ton of formerly legitimate chrome and edge addons got re-classed as malware over the weekend after updates made them all part of a web scraper network. I had a color picker tool installed in Chrome that seems to have been impacted.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I think I can click "Scan Now" an awful lot of times for $30, but your mileage may vary.
To be clear, I have asked that people buy MBAM, but they're people who have displayed the special talent of having infections literally every time Iook, in spite of other precautions I have taken to keep their computer clean.
I've found that putting effective ad and script blocking in place keeps most people out of trouble, but I've also found that the world really can build a better idiot and there are people who will completely remove their ad blocker because the AI Porn Spam link they followed from Facebook tells them to.
To be clear, I have asked that people buy MBAM, but they're people who have displayed the special talent of having infections literally every time Iook, in spite of other precautions I have taken to keep their computer clean.
I've found that putting effective ad and script blocking in place keeps most people out of trouble, but I've also found that the world really can build a better idiot and there are people who will completely remove their ad blocker because the AI Porn Spam link they followed from Facebook tells them to.
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2002
- Messages
- 5,443
What do you use for Ad Blocker etc?
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
For ad-blocking, uBlock Origin with Firefox, and Ghostery or Wipr with Safari.
I personally don't use Chrome, and now that ad blockers can only do so much on that platform, it's making it harder to be happy with that browser (or any browser based on Chrome/Chromium).
Unfortunately blocking javascript by default these days breaks most websites, so it's a bit of a crap shoot using that technique. That is the most secure though, as you are blocking unverifiable code from running on your system. (which is the most common system).
The other thing to do is block notifications from websites by default, as abuse of the notification system is a good vector especially for those on macOS to gain a foot hold. (eg you'll see screen shots of a notification on macOS that is coming from a website with links that the user clicks to download the malware, and as the notification looks/feels like a normal OS level notification it can make it hard for users to determine the trustworthiness of the notification).
I personally don't use Chrome, and now that ad blockers can only do so much on that platform, it's making it harder to be happy with that browser (or any browser based on Chrome/Chromium).
Unfortunately blocking javascript by default these days breaks most websites, so it's a bit of a crap shoot using that technique. That is the most secure though, as you are blocking unverifiable code from running on your system. (which is the most common system).
The other thing to do is block notifications from websites by default, as abuse of the notification system is a good vector especially for those on macOS to gain a foot hold. (eg you'll see screen shots of a notification on macOS that is coming from a website with links that the user clicks to download the malware, and as the notification looks/feels like a normal OS level notification it can make it hard for users to determine the trustworthiness of the notification).
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
uBlock Origin on Firefox and Firefox-derived Browsers, uBlock Lite on Chromium-derived Browsers (Edge, Vivaldi, Chrome, Opera et al). I also install SponsorBlock on every browser. If I go above and beyond that, it's probably because I'm dealing with someone is proof that nature can build a bigger idiot.
I won't use Safari on any platform where it's available. I have no idea what iOS people do. Hopefully switch to something better.
As Chewy said, turning off notifications in your Browser and/or OS may also be helpful. On Android, you should also minimize the applications that are allowed to notify you generally. My list is Gmail, Signal, Snapchat, my Weather application and my home automation setup. You may notice I did not include a calendar application and yes that is how I like it. A LOT of things want to notify you. Almost none of them need to. You may also notice your device's battery life gets better when you aren't getting 60 notifications an hour.
Phishing sites often work through javascript exploits. A lot of the work regardless of the source device. They can be created on anything and will probably run on anything. Your phone or tablet isn't necessarily better or safer from Phishing.
Microsoft makes a tool with a lot of Cleaning an Optimizing Functions, PC Manager. It's available in the Windows Store, but it REALLY wants uses to put things on Microsoft Defaults, so I don't exactly love it. It does do a lot of maintenance tasks, but it's a better option than CCleaner, which I found that some people still insist on using.
sedrosken
Florida Man
CCleaner used to be good, now it's just adware. Even if cleaning the registry was by and large a placebo, it did do a better job of removing temp files than Disk Cleanup did.
These days if I need something like that I'll use BleachBit.
I'll echo everyone here and say I use uBlock Origin, but I also still use NoScript, it's got a "sane" mode now where it'll automatically unblock the site you're explicitly browsing to which makes it much less annoying. I find unblocking CDNs and CloudFront/CloudFlare will cover about 95% of sites. I also use LocalCDN (I used to be a Decentraleyes user) but this may make you stand out so to speak, moreso than you might want.
These days if I need something like that I'll use BleachBit.
I'll echo everyone here and say I use uBlock Origin, but I also still use NoScript, it's got a "sane" mode now where it'll automatically unblock the site you're explicitly browsing to which makes it much less annoying. I find unblocking CDNs and CloudFront/CloudFlare will cover about 95% of sites. I also use LocalCDN (I used to be a Decentraleyes user) but this may make you stand out so to speak, moreso than you might want.