One of those days...

trilogy33

Well-known member
Time for a coffee and relax I thought.
Niece is on her laptop but out of the corner of my eye, her laptop is still infested it seems with "SweetIM" search, which has impregnated itself (again) into firefox.
Makes me cringe, because with every search, their sponsored links are fuelling their pockets Ad nauseam.

Spybot ran and all clear.
Registry is clear.
Best to re-install firefox yes?
 
Sounds like more than just a reinstall of Firefox to me, sounds like you need to run a another sweep of your antivirus and maybe HiJack This as well.
Yes thanks, I had a inkling towards hitting it with Hijack this.
AVG AntiVirus always been clear, as with SpyBot S&D. I've a feeling it's something in the Firefox profiling...
Possibly in this case, a reinstall is the way to go. Appreciate the input :)
 
Interesting. When looking at this, it seems that there's some argument as to whether or not SweetIM is malware or not. According to some frustrated users it is but most industry people I've seen say no.

I'm interested what you've done besides SpyBot to remove this.
 
Interesting. When looking at this, it seems that there's some argument as to whether or not SweetIM is malware or not. According to some frustrated users it is but most industry people I've seen say no.

I'm interested what you've done besides SpyBot to remove this.
Defo a baddun. Anything that leaves traces and refuses to move itself when asked is...just...that.
It's green listed (spyware free) on a few review sites, but then again, it's all down to how much they're "paid to say so."
Additional:

The SpyBot web site has this handy guide to remove it by hand. Be advised that I have not tested this, nor am I planning on loading this software to test. Hope it works for ya!
Okey dokey, thanks. Good to know.
 
Interesting. When looking at this, it seems that there's some argument as to whether or not SweetIM is malware or not. According to some frustrated users it is but most industry people I've seen say no.

I'm interested what you've done besides SpyBot to remove this.
Sorry, missed that bit.
Removing it, at least for a benevolent utility should be as easy as pie, at least for the average user.
In this order: Remove program itself, remove its associated browser plug in (search bar).
 
In this order: Remove program itself, remove its associated browser plug in (search bar).

And it still shows up due to registry adds? Huhn. Don't know how this ever got the green light from supposedly unbiased industry folks but that sounds like the textbook definition of malware.
 
Interesting. When looking at this, it seems that there's some argument as to whether or not SweetIM is malware or not. According to some frustrated users it is but most industry people I've seen say no.

I'm interested what you've done besides SpyBot to remove this.
The industry people I see are saying that it's wiser to remove it...esp if you are having issues. If you can't get it removed, go to an ASAP site.
 
The industry people I see are saying that it's wiser to remove it...esp if you are having issues. If you can't get it removed, go to an ASAP site.

I think that's the biggest issue with this kind of thing. They can blizzard sites so it looks good. Like my WOT has it as a pretty 50/50 mix of good/bad. The good is ratings but then you start getting into the comments.

Truthfully I hadn't heard of this one until this very thread.
 
Screen Blizzard is good if you're twelve. So that's their target audience sorted.
biggrin.png


Kids install it I guess because it's an *ahem* sweet and cheerful instant messenger (MSN I'm looking at you)/smiley associated piece of *beep* software.
A.k.a "Macrogaming" a.k.a SweetIM Ltd. registered in Israel. So that's safe ROFL! No offence.

Registry classes, yeah check. Browser hooks (basically whatever browser you have on your machine at the time, so not limited to a default browser, sneaky).

Interestingly, a quick and I mean very quick off-the-cuff search sees Norton saying it's fine and greened. Again, check the
comments.
comments though as you say.

Not surpringly, I dropped Norton AV and SystemWorks since 2003 when they began to suffer package bloat.
Onwards and upwards.
 
When I got home tonight my wife was visibly upset because she accidentally got fooled by one of those fake virus alerts that when you click on takes over your entire PC. I spent the better part of an hour cleaning it all out.

This one was "Antivirus .NET" and is a nasty one. It hijacks your registry and all exe programs and won't even let you kill processes. You have to boot in safe mode (F8 at the startup screen) and then follow the instructions here. The damned thing randomizes its names and processes so you can't just search for it. You HAVE to be computer savvy to get rid of it.
 
It would have blocked and quarantined the attack, I click on RFI script links and it blocks them (not recommended for those without security).
 
It would have blocked and quarantined the attack, I click on RFI script links and it blocks them (not recommended for those without security).

Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

When my wife gets work and starts pulling in a paycheck again (
frown.png
) I'll seriously look at this.
 
This is why I hate having to watch what family do on my computer. I told my brother a few years ago, "becareful what you do on the internet" and then boom, once he searches for a piece, he finds a website that self-installs programs into the computer. P!$$ed me off. Because I had to spend the next day WIPING out my hard drive and re-installing. Gah.
 
The most basic free thing you should have running is AVG. The free version is ample, but don't for God's sake run it's inbuilt PC Optimizer.
There are many free tools out there which will cover "optimisation".
That plus a good Spybot S&D every now and again, should keep you reasonably safe.
 
Top Bottom