Ummm, did this site infect my computer?

Great Scott! · 07-12-2008, 02:29 PM

I hate to make accusations, but earlier I was on here going through some posts when suddenly my window turns into this tiny one with a message popping up telling me something bad in the site was detected and I needed to install some Windows Vista anti-spyware software thing to fix it. Obviously spyware, so I close out of it (after about three more message boxes came up), and then I go upstairs to eat lunch. When I come back down and open up my browser, absolutely no site works except this one, they all act like I have no internet connection! Even the ads on this site aren't working! Not to mention sometimes when I navigate through pages, the entire page goes blank for a few seconds sometimes before re-appearing. I'm using SpyBot and Ad-Aware right now, but this is really freaky... I only just started coming back here last night, but I don't wanna have to give it up again so soon because it infects my computer!

Oh, and 200th post! I was less than twenty away from that though when I came back so it wasn't hard, hahah.

EDIT: All right, I restarted Firefox, and now not only is this the only site I can go to, but coming on here makes Firefox do some really crazy ****. None of my anti-spyware programs are detecting anything, somebody please help. I'm gonna get in a lot of trouble if this isn't fixed.

Mace MacLeod · 07-12-2008, 05:04 PM

Wow, that sucks. This site has never been any trouble for me, but it sounds like something nasty crawled into your comp.

I dunno, try IE and see if it fares any better. All antispyware and antivirus programs updating? Reinstall Firefox? Did you unplug the comp and plug it back in...? Grabbing at straws here.

Great Scott! · 07-12-2008, 05:08 PM

Well I did all these scans and stuff, none of them really found much, but after I was done all the websites and stuff have been working again, I haven't gotten the message since. So I dunno, but I'm still on alert, and if something happens again I'll post here.

I wouldn't unplug my computer or restart it because last time I got a big virus and did that the computer itself didn't even start up unless I went into safe mode, where it took me more than three hours to fix everything.

Mace MacLeod · 07-12-2008, 05:19 PM

K. You should probably PM a moderator like stoffe or tk102 who actually know stuff about computers unlike me.

Marius Fett · 07-12-2008, 06:00 PM

Like Mace said, it's HIGHLY doubtful that LF has anything to do with it.

Best to do a full scan and let tk know just in case though.

TriggerGod · 07-12-2008, 08:28 PM

Hmm..
Did you update your Firefox to V. 3?

Great Scott! · 07-12-2008, 08:30 PM

No, and I have it set on automatic updates too... strange.

Where do I get that? Is it drastically different? If so, I don't really wanna upgrade, I don't need it looking all "futuristic" or any of that janx.

*tk102* · 07-12-2008, 08:48 PM

Sounds like you're no longer having browser symptoms. If you were still experiencing them, I would also suggest upgrading to Firefox 3 ( http://firefox.com ) to give yourself a clean slate. It's not revolutionary in its appearance or behavior, but it consumes much less memory and loads javascript more quickly. The automatic updates in Firefox won't make major upgrades (eg. v2 -> v3) automatically.

You might also try clearing your private data and deleting your cookies (Tools->Options->Privacy tab) if you get further problems. It would also be good to know whether you had any similar issues with Internet Explorer.

Great Scott! · 07-12-2008, 09:05 PM

My cookies and private data delete every time I close the browser so nobody else in my family sees what I'm looking at... not that it's inappropriate, just don't need people snooping.

Ahhh, all right, that sounds good. I'll install it right now, thanks!