Startup pest screen

A week ago I installed FileZilla, which I have done several times on earlier machines.

I was in a rush and didn't spot that Yahoo was also going to be installed and set as my default browser and search engine .

I sorted this fairly easily wrt IE11, my preferred browser. It was more difficult with my secondary one, Chrome, where the installation had emptied the search engine list and inserted itself as the only one. In the end I had to reset Chrome to its defaults.

Now, whenever I boot the machine, Chrome is loaded with a mysterious white box and the Windows "working" spinner. See this link (I hope).

I eventually found the Startup folder in Win 8.1. There was some reference in there to Chrome or Yahoo, I forget which, which I removed, but it made no difference.

Does anyone know what has happened please, and how to get rid of this?

I've been asked to sort laptops for two family members recently. Both were using Chrome and both machines were OK after getting shut of it and then doing a bit of housekeeping. I use the free version of CCleaner and have found it invaluable (especially the registry cleaning tool) to get things back to normal. In both cases. I must admit that Malwarebytes found quite a bit of dross on the machines as well.

Good ideas. I use malwarebytes now and then, but didn't think of it for this as I wouldn't think this is malware. But I'll run that in a moment.

Also CCleaner - which I have used in the past and found good useful. So I shall download and use that as well.

I don't want to delete Chrome at this stage, but if the above don't work I shall do so then rerun.

Then report back .

Brilliant. Malwarebytes found 9 win.yahoo references and two to do with chrome autostart in the registry. Quarantined them and the problem has gone. I may have disabled a Chrome addon (AdBlock) but easily replaced. Only needed for watching F1 streams on it.



I'll run CCleaner as well but just because it does tidy things up.

Thanks.

Unfortunately SourceForge starting bundling adware (malware) and FilleZiilla was the first major app (and probably only major) to actively participate - Link. As a result FileZilla isn't something I'd install any more and SourceForge is no longer trusted especially their antics with GIMP .

If that wasn't enough there was also a malware version of FileZilla floating around last year - Link

SourceForge was recently sold again, but I suspect it has fallen to far to make any recovery

In reply to a post by Kenneth:

Unfortunately SourceForge starting bundling adware (malware) and FilleZiilla was the first major app (and probably only major) to actively participate - Link. As a result FileZilla isn't something I'd install any more and SourceForge is no longer trusted especially their antics with GIMP .

The software vendor can prevent the SourceForge installation wrapper from being added to the installer by adding "nowrap" to the download url. As far as I can see FileZilla have done this on their website, so people clicking the download links on there shouldn't be seeing the installation wrapper.

I don't download anything from SourceForge nowadays. I just don't trust them.

I've a feeling, in my ignorance, that it was SourceForge I got it from. Unfortunately when running CCleaner earlier I deleted the history. I know I diownloaded it on 22nd, so could have checked there . Dammit.

Try this, http://unchecky.com/ wouldn't be without it.

Looks interesting. Though this is the first I've missed in at least 12 years. I don't even know if a check-box was presented.

Out of interest I installed Malwarebytes & ran it. Nowt much of surprise except about 12 registry entries for One System Care ( http://onesystemcare.com/faq.html ). Can't see any software related to it. It seems to be a utility like CClearer but for £20.

The curious thing is that these entries do not appear under my initial main admin user (/me) but only under my 2 non-admin users; my wife who hardy uses the PC and a Visitor (for some reason you can't create Guest or enable it On W10 Home) which I created for that purpose but nobody has ever used yet. Neither would have subscribed to this service. If it had been done by my wife inadvertently clicking a link then it would not have appeared under Visitor. Nor are there any unexpected £20 charges to our a/c's.

Does any know anything about One System Care & can explain how it could have appeared on my PC but not under the 95% user?

I've a feeling a free version of that is pushed with IOBit Uninstaller. Have you got that?

No, not a trace of it. But that seems a useful utility. I might now get it now you've drawn my attention to it.

I only discovered it last month, and it sorted out a problem I had getting rid of yahoo garbage I'd accidentally installed. I'd deleted everything that I could see, but on boot the laptop opened up with a yahoo screen .

It was seven left-over registry entries from the normal windows delete processes and my own file system and startup menu follow-ups. It wiped those out and found two or three other entries I recognised as junk.

I used it again later to complete the deletion of something I experimented with and then got rid of.

Autoruns would have been useful here. A valuable tool to keep in the armoury.

Looks good.