WinFixer spyware/adware removal help?

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:45 pm

My GFs laptop got the lovely WinFixer adware and I worked on it for a good hour and made no progress. Does anyone here have any advice or experience removing this?

Thanks!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:56 pm

I take it you already tried adaware and spybot?

If you did, try the trend micro housecall free online virus/spyware scan, might work.

Hijack this might help too.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:59 pm

I've heard that the Microsoft anti-spyware beta is actually surprisingly effective; I only had it installed for a short time, but it appeared to be pretty powerful. It's worth a shot, at least.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:14 pm

I wouldn't trust MS Anti-spyware at all. Damn thing lets anything through if you pay MS enough. It already ignores GAIM (Gator) by default. I really suggest you nuke all your system restore points (by turning it off temporarily), run Hijack This! (available on spywareinfo.com) and then scan with Adaware & Spybot. When your system is clean, re-enable system restore if you like. (Just FYI, nasty stuff like GAIM will infect your system restore points.)

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 6:36 pm

MD-2389 wrote:I wouldn't trust MS Anti-spyware at all. Damn thing lets anything through if you pay MS enough. It already ignores GAIM (Gator) by default. I really suggest you nuke all your system restore points (by turning it off temporarily), run Hijack This! (available on spywareinfo.com) and then scan with Adaware & Spybot. When your system is clean, re-enable system restore if you like. (Just FYI, nasty stuff like GAIM will infect your system restore points.)

x2!!

MS Spyware, missed sooo many things. and like MD says, simply ignores a ton of things. use Adaware and Spybot.

i did find out a interesting note:

if you uninstall Spybot 1.3 before installing spybot 1.4, 1.4 will not keep the 1.3 database. just install 1.4 overtop of the 1.3 installation.

Honest Bob · Post by **Honest Bob** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 2:06 pm

Suprisingly spy sweeper works very well. I beleive I had a customers pc that had winfixer on it. What I normally do is install the spy sweeper trial reboot into safe mode and run spy sweeper. Its a bit of a resource hog so I usually uninstall it after I'm finished.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 2:09 pm

MD-2389 wrote:I wouldn't trust MS Anti-spyware at all. Damn thing lets anything through if you pay MS enough. It already ignores GAIM (Gator) by default. ...

My copy of Windows ME installs Alexa. o_0 ...wth??

X2 to Krom. Great stand-bys and free. (yea, I know that the MS stuff is free to)

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 11:10 pm

Alexia is part of IE dude. It comes pre-bundled with it ever since v4.0 if I recall correctly.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 11:39 pm

Alexia is a nasty piece of spyware.

I've seen it shut down network connections due to the amount of data it was pumping out. We had router logs to confirm it. :
Comes up in Ad-Aware and Spybot also.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 1:35 am

i always kill alexia when i run spybot and Ad-aware.

Asrale · Post by **Asrale** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 2:07 am

Alexa is not adware. Despite what anyone else tells you, it is not malicious, and like already said, is included with any fresh MS installation of Internet Explorer.

Also, Spy Sweeper kills the WinFixer adware, the trial version on the Web site should work.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 2:24 am

Asrale .. did you read what I posted?

It shut a connnection down. It DOS'd me.