Software*******com

[Bobby]

The last several days, as I come onto this site, I am getting a popup from software******.com. It wants me to download some software updates. I thought it might be a virus of some kind, I am running OS X Yosemite and have Parallels installed. I have now seen that Dodger72 is seeing a similar thing from the annoyance thread. Both us see this only when looking at this website. I went into the Windows side of Parallels yesterday and noted that I had a cookie for softwareupdater and I removed it. Today I got the popup again. I go to several other websites before I come here and do not see an issue at all, only when I come here and it usually pops up when I am entering a forum and then a thread.

 

[Tampa8]

It's classified as malware, sometimes "PUP" Potentially Unwanted Program. I had to clean from my system many months ago, I have no indication it necessarily came from here. I used this;

 

[StevenD]

I recently discovered ESET SysRescue Live. It worked wonders on my MIL's computer after she gave in to "support personnel" needing to remote into her computer. <sigh>

http://www.eset.com/int/download/utilities/detail/family/239/

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have been reading about that one. Some of the things I read said it could have been installed and laying dormant for a long time and is only activated when they want to activate it. Then once actives it pops up when it sees certain words on the screen.

Hard to tell if it came from here or not, because you are a Pub Member you only see the Google Adsense ads and for the most part those are safe... I say for the most part because a few weeks ago they did have an issue with two ads which they have fixed and updated their network to prevent that from happening again.

I would suggest using Malwayebytes and having it check and clean your system. You can get it for free from http://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/or-nodl/

 

[raoul5788]

I got that same popup earlier today. Malwarebytes removed it.

 

[racersimage]

I got redirected from here last night while viewing a topic in the Dish forum.

 

[JSheridan]

I got that same popup earlier today. Malwarebytes removed it.

Windows? Did you have to use safe mode?

 

[raoul5788]

I have W7. I didn't have to go into safe mode, just ran Malwarebytes and it removed it.

 

[JSheridan]

Thanks. I run Malwarebytes weekly and so far so good.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

In checking with some other admins it appears that the bad ad was on sites owned or run by Huddler which runs their own ad network. So if you visit any sites which are run by Huddler you could have picked it up there. The Google Adsense Network has been safe since they applied those new filters a few weeks ago.

 

[Bobby]

Thanks Scott for checking. I ran malwarebytes 2 days ago and it didn't fix it. I'll try it again... I even got the popup this morning, twice, while doing my thing here. I am using Windows XP on my virtual HD. I don't think IE 11 will even work on that. Thing is, I only use Windows for Taxact. If they would add Mac to their software, I'd get rid of Parallels entirely....

 

[thomasjk]

Try Adwcleaner. Works well for removing adware.

 

[Bobby]

I reran malwarebytes again, it saw nothing. Gonna try adwcleaner next...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

BTW just changed the name of this thread so we dont give them free advertising.

 

[Bobby]

Very nice. BTW, ran adwcleaner, it saw a few things,and cleaned up. Still got the popup this AM....

 

[thomasjk]

Check out this link http://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-open-software-updater/.

 

[Titanium]

I keep getting redirected as well. 2x yesterday and 4x this morning.

Ran Malwarebytes last night and the redirects have returned this AM.

 

[thomasjk]

Check the link I posted above.

 

[racersimage]

Found a topic on the Adsense support forums with 289 posts about this and the old redirects

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/szfNNkPrkLI[276-300-false]

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Thats the same thread I posted a few weeks ago when Adsense was having issues then.

I have spent 3+ hours and have gone through over 67,000 ads that are in the Adsense system, and blocked out a few thousand ads which I didn't think fit with SatelliteGuys and a great majority of them were ads saying Your Software is outdated, click here to update, and CLICK HERE to download type ads. I also got rid of a bunch of gross ads such as the ones showing stomach worms and other stuff like that.

Did I decrease our possible ad revenue? Possibly but I don't want those ads shown here.