Any IT gurus?

[Glenda]

Went out of town for a few days and youngest son came home to dog sit for us. Now my computer has all these pop up ads which are annoying the hell out of me. Have run our normal anti virus plus spybot. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them would be appreciated, or off to the technician it goes.

[ameerat42]

Not you too! I've had that sort of stuff a couple of times recently.

Llps (I notice someone else here calls you "plates"), what sort of "pop-up ads" are they?
Do they look like the ones at the top of the AP pages here, or are they horribly flashing little multicoloured borders
that buzz at you nearer the bottom/sides of the page?

If the first, I'd say see whether your Ad-blocker has been disabled. If you never even had one, install one.
I have Ad-blocker Plus.

If it's the 2nd type, it is (likely) caused by some malware (can't think of the name off hand - need to look at logs).
For these you need to run a virus scan. BUT, not just any virus scan. Two I was recently told about, and which I have used to
no little avail are Malware Bytes, and SuperAntiVirus.

These are standalone programs - they do not displace whatever security suite you have already installed.
But make sure you download the standalone version (portable version) and set them up that way. AND, for
first time users they give you ONE MONTH free trial of the FULL SUITE. Take up that offer. After a bit
they will revert to the on-demand anti-virus scanner only.

Now, you can install them on an EXTERNAL DRIVE (HDD or USB stick) if you like. Make an icon on the desktop
to run them when the drive is connected. (However, I have them installed on the same drive as the OS as well
as on ext HDD.)

Run each one in turn, as well as your normal suite. You'll find they're pretty good at finding nasties.

Finally, (at the risk of being police-like) check the History of your browser to see the possible source of
this malware. Sometimes it can come from the most innocuous places.

Check out what others say as well, as the foregoing was supplied by a NON-IT-ite..
Am.

[Kym]

Run BOTH of these, one after the other, both free

https://www.malwarebytes.org/ (Free version)

and

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/ (adwcleaner)

[ameerat42]

Silly me! And here's SuperAntiSpyware (not Virus).

[Glenda]

Thanks guys will try running them and see how I go. Oh and they are those horrid flashing ones telling me I've won a prize etc.

[ameerat42]

Malware. Hittem with the lot!!!

[Glenda]

Thanks so much, they appear to have gonski.. Can't seem to get Firefox to reload but Chrome is okay.

[ameerat42]

What OS are you using? Look for any unclosed sessions of FFox in Task Manager - Processes -arranged in name order. Happens to me
with both sometimes, but more with FFox. That's just for your own interest. Of course, a re-start of your computer will close any
sessions that get stuck.

[Warus]

Was the search history "deleted" when you got home?

[MissionMan]

Another vote for Malwarebytes. Generally the crap is picked up from torrent sites or downloading "freeware". As someone suggested, check the browsing history although you can browse in private (incognito) which leaves nothing behind.

[Mark L]

How did you pick up what the problem was?

And here's SuperAntiSpyware (not Virus).

Such a bad name for such a good piece of software.

[ameerat42]

How did you pick up what the problem was?

Mark. Have you ever seen...

...guys will try running them and see how I go. Oh and they are those horrid flashing ones telling me I've won a prize etc.

Viz:

they are those horrid flashing ones telling me I've won a prize etc.

[Mark L]

^

How did you pick up what the problem was?

Should have asked, how you got rid of the problem then?

[ameerat42]

Mark. I don't know who you're asking. If me, then MWB did its scan, IDed the baddies, put them in a list and asked if I wanted to delete them.
I did, rebooted, and they were gone. You find out about the baddies from the internet. I can't remember mine.

[Glenda]

Son said he was on a free download site and accidentally clicked on an ad. Ran the recommended scans and problem solved. As we will be travelling more often this year and said son will be house and dog sitting these will be taped in a prominant space on the computer desk for him to use if necessary.

[MissionMan]

Son said he was on a free download site and accidentally clicked on an ad. Ran the recommended scans and problem solved. As we will be travelling more often this year and said son will be house and dog sitting these will be taped in a prominant space on the computer desk for him to use if necessary.

Its fairly common. There are two approaches the companies use. They either disguise the adverts as updates for flash or they embed the software in legitimate free downloads without the knowledge of the original developer. I.e. they host a copy of NX-D for download and then imbed the malware in the download package so when you install the package from a site, it seems legit because it works but in the background it's dumped a whole heap of crap on your machine.