Random ad links again

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 22 Mar 2013 5:08 pm

This has happened to me before and I forgot what to do. I am getting random links in posts on the forum that when you hover over them or click on them, you get ads. I know they are not put in by the poster because I posted a topic and a word got underlined and the color of font change, just like a normal hyperlink. How do I get rid of them.

In fact, the words "ad links" in my title, "meet online" in the forum logo at the top of the page, "want" in the sentence asking if you want to add a poll are all showing this behavior. The words turn orange and have a double underline.

Only things I have done in the past day was to run cCleaner last evening and Malwarebytes over night, neither of which I think would cause this.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 22 Mar 2013 5:40 pm

OK, figured it out. It's an actual program called TidyNetwork and you uninstall it through control panel / add - remove programs. I would like to know how it gets installed without my knowledge and permission. I am assuming it is some sort of malware. What's puzzling is, the only things I have recently downloaded or updated were MalwareBytes and cCleaner. I would assume both of those to be safe from this crap.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 23 Mar 2013 9:35 pm

Without seeing your browser's history, I can only guess that this snuck in via a stealthy downloader on a compromised web page you visited.

The website may be legitimate, but because they are running some insecure web software, or an out-dated blog, criminals installed a redirection script and your browser followed it.