Voiceups?
A plea to you Scrabbled nerds.
So, I know a lot of you use Macs and that you guys don’t usually have to deal with problems like this, but I think I have some weird virus on my PC. Every few minutes I get a “voice-up” – some audio will play saying shit like “you have been selected to win a free Nintendo Wii” or “you have just won a $100 walmart gift card”. The weird part is that the audio isn’t accompanied by a pop-up, it happens even if Firefox and IE are closed, so I have no idea what program it’s all associated with.
Are voice-ups the new pop-ups? Anyone know how to get rid of this?
P.S.
Please spare me the “Wii is awesome, you should be psyched you’re getting one for free” comment(s) that I know are coming…
Comments
You should get a Mac.
(John just shed a tear of joy)
hahahahah, it’s true, and allow me to explain why (I’m gonna solve your problem for you, so just bear with me): In the operating system world, there’s this idea of user access. For years, unix systems and all their brethren had the gold standard of user access schemas. You had your user, your groups, and all files knew which users and groups could read, write, or execute them. Most system files were only accessible to a root user or superuser, so you’d have to have some sort of all-encompassing system password in order to do anything system-wide (like install a program, change settings, make shit start up with your computer, etc).
So one day Microsoft comes along and they say “Eh. Fuck that. It’s too complicated. Grandma doesn’t want to have to remember a password.” So they make every file readable, writable, and executable by everyone by default and then, on top of that, they make everyone a superuser by default. Just in case.
So then the internet happens and people are coming in contact with more and more of the outside world and a bunch of marginally educated and hopeless bored teenagers realize what Microsoft has done and they go “FCUK! W3 C@N 1N5T@LL PR0GR@M5 0N Y0UR C0MPUT3R5! LOL!” and they come up with some pretty simple viruses and assorted malware. Then some business people see this and go “FCUK! W3 C@N 1N5T@LL @DV3TISMEN5 0N Y0UR C0MPUT3R5! ROFL LOLMAO!” and they take those viruses and malware, stick ads in ‘em, and now you’ve got today.
Macs run on unix. The same unix that’s been stable and secure for decades. You don’t get viruses and malware, not because people aren’t targetting macs, but because if you want to target a mac, you have to actually know what you’re doing and find a real exploit to get around the whole user system. So far, the only way anyone’s been doing it involves you typing your password. So not at all.
Plus macs have absurdly better window management and applications because their GUI platform, Cocoa, is outstanding.
But on to your problem.
You’ve got a rogue process. A process refers to a single running application file and rogue is a mutant who steals other mutants powers. Also, it’s something you didn’t install. If you hit ctrl-alt-delete, you’ll get a list of running applications that windows knows about. Not incredibly useful. But if you click over to the “processes” tab, you get all the running processes, even the ones windows doesn’t know dick about (and ass you’ll clearly see, Windows don’t know dick about shit). Most of these you should be able to figure out what the hell it is. A few you won’t and maybe they’re system files. One might pop out at you and scream “I’m trying to sell you shit!” just by it’s file name. But maybe not. You might just have to kill a bunch of unfamiliar processes until
- you crash windows and have to restart and try again or
- you find your rogue process.
THEN you hit run on your start menu and type “msconfig” and in the window that pops up, click the “startup” tab. This is all the shit that starts with your computer. Find your rogue process and uncheckit. THEN head to add/remove programs and try to find your rogue program. THEN download adaware or spybot and run it just to be sure. And that’s it. Hopefully you’ve nuked it and you won’t have your problem anymore.
By the way, the solution to this problem on a mac, if it existed (which it doesn’t), is “drag the running program to your trashcan.”
<3
John said:<3
Haha!
I fooled around in the “Processes” tab before, but I usually lose interest because it’s all mumbo jumbo to me. I’ve dealt with ridding myself of pop-up type malware before, but this freaked me out because it doesn’t seem to be associated with a specific program. Hopefully it’s something obvious that I can just nuke because it’s REALLY fucking annoying. Especially when I’m watching porn.
Ad-Aware and Spybot are oblivious to this thing by the way. Are the pay versions of that software better than the free ones?
Have you recently updated them? It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with this sort of junk so I don’t know if they’re getting around them now.
I usually run them about once a week and update them every time I run them. I actually kind of screwed myself last night though because I encountered an error updating Ad-Aware so I just tried to re-install the whole thing. But, they make you sign up for free trials of shit to get the free version now, and I refuse to do that, so the net effect is that I just completely deleted both Ad-Aware and Spybot from my computer.
I think I’m OK though because I just found out from a co-worker that I can get full versions of either Norton or McAffee for free through the Army. Hopefully one of those will be able to clean me up.
Thanks for the help by the way, forgot to say so in my last post.
You don’t want Norton or McAffee. I promise you. I swear to you. Whatever you do, DO NOT install those programs. They won’t help you with this issue anyway since it’s not classified as a virus.
Damnit. Are you sure this isn’t just a cunning ruse to get me to buy a Mac? I’ll do it man, I swear.
I promise it isn’t, but I almost promise you’d be better off.
As for Norton and McAffee, only install them if you want them interfering with everything you do on your computer and making it run half as fast.
I think you keep going through the processes, that’s how I’ve dealt with a similar problem in the past. You’ll feel that much more computer savvy afterward.
Or, you could return to system defaults, if it hasn’t been happening that long.
Oh gosh! Don’t install Norton or McAffee! Norton, for me, has been responsible for more hard drive deaths than anything else. Just do the msconfig thing and run an updated version of that free AdAware program. That usually cleans up ad stuff for me.
Plus, I always resented Norton for an earlier box design featuring an Uber-Prick tech jerk smugly giving you the fuck-off-eye. He’d peer over his glasses with an immense amount of contempt, seething a moldering hatred for my inability to keep things on my computer clean. I hate him.
“Way to fuck your shit up, asshole!”
GAH! FUCK! OH, MY HATE STILL BURNS HOT!
You should still get a Mac.