Annoying Pop Up Videos

Using Google Chrome and Firefox, I am getting unwanted and annoying pop up videos.  Stupid things start playing out of now where.  I cleared my cache but did me no good.  Any ideas how to stop this?

You probably have mallware in your system causing it.  Helped a few people clean stuff from their computers recently, so I have a pretty good idea as to how to identify and remove it.  But first, I have to give a word of caution.

Be careful with downloading free software from pretty much ANYWHERE on the internet these days.  Even installing a tool that will help you, could result in worse mallware/spyware being installed in your system. 

In other words... Dont Trust Anything you see online, unless you can find a actual person review for the software your about to test out.  I looked up on google for a program to remove the 'Conduit Search' program that was causing my dad issues.  The 'tool' that I installed did nothing to remove that tool, instead it installed another search program called 'SweetSearch', and I then had to clear that out of the system too.

And one more thing...  There are these 'Banner Ads' that try to confuse you when you download software from certain sites, like Download.com, CNET.com, PCMAG.com and other 'bulk' donwload websites.  These banners LOOK  like they are the Download link for a file you want, but they are just there to mislead you and get you to install a POS search engine sort of crap again.  Make sure before you download anything that you are first attempting to get it from the source, IE the company that makes it, not the bulk donwload sites, which have these confusing banner ads.

TBC...

Now it's GOOD that you are using FireFox and Chrome, which are generally less susceptible to these types of things.  The first thing to try is disable any 3rd party extensions that may have been installed. Most people wont have any 3rd party Add-Ons in there that are needed.  In my opinion the only one you need is a popular ad blocking add-on.  Take a look at this link:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/remove-toolbar-has-taken-over-your-firefox-search

Let me know if you have any odd looking add-ons...  But go ahead and pretty much disable anything you see.  Then see if the problem stops at all.  If so, and you can identify which one it was, go ahead and remove it.

Now it's time to get a tool to help look for other problems...  The one that I use and trust for 99% of the issues i've had is called Spybot Search And Destroy.

The download link is here, and yes it is from a bulk download site, but I started at the Official Website and clicked through the options to make it easier for you.  The official site is http://www.safer-networking.org/, but here is the direct d/l link:

http://www.fosshub.com/Spybot-Search-and-Destroy.html

Make sure the link that you click isn't some fancy banner add!!

The txt should say exactly this on the link for the download:

Code: [Select]

Download Spybot Search and Destroy Windows Installer - 38.77 MB | version: 2.2
Install, run, and fix any threats that it finds. 

Sometimes Spybot finds 1-10 things and they are cookies and stuff that you could clear yourself.  Sometimes it finds hundreds of entries...  For the most part, i've never had it fix/remove anything that I wanted to keep, only bad stuff that it removed.  If once you have run the program, and re-run it again find just a couple of things, probably nothing to worry about. 

Problem solved??  If not...

Next....

Try using this program to clear out all unwanted chaches throughout your whole system.  This cleaner works really well, and was very effective at removing entries associated with the Adware / Spyware / Search Crap that was infecting my dad's computer.  Just like Spybot, run, remove, etc.  Has some options to keep certain things like your website passwords and such.  If you cant live without them, go ahead and uncheck the options you want to make sure stay the same. 

The official website for CCleaner http://www.piriform.com

And the download link for you to jump right too: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

So after doing those things, one more thing I do is run through the system's list of programs that were installed, and remove anything that looks suspicious.  You do so in the control panel, depending on your version of windows, under Programs and Features, or something similar. 

Here is a quick article from MS: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-change-program#uninstall-change-program=windows-vista

If you see something like "Annoying Video Player" or something else weird, probably safe to remove it...

A note about Virus scanners:   Ditch ALL of them and go with the Microsoft's version.  Mcaffee is a joke, and NO one should use it.  They try and get you to install it along with pretty much any Adobe product which also annoys the hell out of me.  Use the uninstall for the program you have, or go to the control panel like the last post and remove it from there. 

Now go here, and install Security Essentials from MS:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download

EDIT:  Oh, and NEVER PAY FOR ANTI-VIRUS, such as Norton etc just because it was on your computer when you purchased it.

So if none of that has helped you, or just confused you further, go ahead and shoot me a PM with a time you might be free today for me to go over the issues with you.    

One more thing, using Chrome, if I use the "Enter" button on type a new paragraph or add more space I get weird source code.  http://www.basicserve.com/b.cgi?bk=H8QuUDF0m7RYXZvZCCXls61rhCPBKsaV6VlF52ro0ykBJ2x3WDxkL6JcSfx1BtEe3oG9nTajskT*LJPHs76AI9XVYWDkIXF*lfvt3E4rIj2lhT1Ahpw7oxAVE5qCroFZRQdHh6EnBX5V5y7fMBUJwQfeIUJu2WIzkBFSBi9vyzt1*hwnlctUd6NGSwvyUt-*JfO5pNu6HrbZ5rlw9QaLUDA3qUZUV*XV9KF8m5hrNBufQC4uwGuv8w*MX*5nArI33lSKN7HiLpxmm3tQeCUi0LqJUdLGIwThanks,

One more thing, using Chrome, if I use the "Enter" button on type a new paragraph or add more space I get weird source code.  http://www.basicserve.com/b.cgi?bk=H8QuUDF0m7RYXZvZCCXls61rhCPBKsaV6VlF52ro0ykBJ2x3WDxkL6JcSfx1BtEe3oG9nTajskT*LJPHs76AI9XVYWDkIXF*lfvt3E4rIj2lhT1Ahpw7oxAVE5qCroFZRQdHh6EnBX5V5y7fMBUJwQfeIUJu2WIzkBFSBi9vyzt1*hwnlctUd6NGSwvyUt-*JfO5pNu6HrbZ5rlw9QaLUDA3qUZUV*XV9KF8m5hrNBufQC4uwGuv8w*MX*5nArI33lSKN7HiLpxmm3tQeCUi0LqJUdLGIwThanks,

Yeap, thats certainly crap causing issues on your system. Do not go to that website, but instead search google for basicserve.com and I came up with this right away:

http://blog.anvisoft.com/hijackers/how-to-remove-basicserve-com-from-my-browser/

And it's pretty much says to go to the control panel and remove it under the add-remove features. 

Funny thing though, sometimes there are multiple issues/malwares or they have a tendency to re-install themselves (kind of like a virus!)

So I still recommend all the steps that I have listed.......



EDIT:  Do not install whatever that Cloud Booster stuff is on that site either. 

Al - Thanks for the help.  I can hit the Enter button now without the unwanted source code.  For now the pop videos are gone.

Mel 

Your welcome Mel, glad I could be of some help. 

Thanks for the info Al 

A note about Virus scanners:   Ditch ALL of them and go with the Microsoft's version.  Mcaffee is a joke, and NO one should use it.  They try and get you to install it along with pretty much any Adobe product which also annoys the hell out of me.  Use the uninstall for the program you have, or go to the control panel like the last post and remove it from there. 

Now go here, and install Security Essentials from MS:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download

EDIT:  Oh, and NEVER PAY FOR ANTI-VIRUS, such as Norton etc just because it was on your computer when you purchased it.

For those unfortunate enough to have no choice but to use Windows 8, Security Essentials will not work. Windows Defender is used in Windows 8.