Recently, several words on E.C have become highlighted and when I put my mouse over the highlighted word, I get these strange advertisements like "win a free ipod" or buy a certain product. These highlighted words appear randomly either in the posts or on the top part of the index page. It's kind of annoying and I'm wondering if anyone else is having the same issue or is it something unique to my computer?
I haven't noticed it on any other sites but that seems likely. If I do a full virus scan, will that solve things?
Sometimes I get those, but only on those random forums I stumble across when trying to find a solution to an issue I have. I've never seen them on anything I use in my daily computing, though, and definitely never on EC.
We staff members gotta eat! In all seriousness though, EC doesn't advertise. It's likely some adware that got onto your computer. I'd recommend running your antivirus, and if it doesn't pick anything up, upgrading your antivirus.
Ah Dan was right! It was some kind of malware plug in. My sister uses my computer more than I do but she says that she's also seen these highlighted words on a lot of other forums that she's on. It's called a text enhancer. I looked up how to remove it and now it's gone so thank you
Get Malewarebytes Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware, anti-virus and spyware removal download (Prob your best choice among others out there, it's my go-to for stuff like this.) You don't have a virus, you have adware; all it does is try to advertise and doesn't usually harm your computer. Antivirus probably won't take care of it. Some antivirus programs can remove it but again, these aren't viruses they're adware. If you want to remove it yourself there are a couple things you can do. I'd only recommend them if nothing else works. Hold down the windows key and R at the same time. Type in MSCONFIG into the box. Click the startup tab and comb through there for anything that appears suspicious. If nothing else you can disable all the checks in that box. You don't actually need any of those programs to start up your computer; but you probably won't have internet or anything because those programs didn't start up. To start them again just go into MSCONFIG and re-check all the boxes. Restart your computer in safe mode and run an antivirus or antimaleware. Safe mode runs on only factory start-up programs so you won't load the maleware program too. That way it can't hide and an antimaleware program can pick it up. If you have any more questions feel free to send me a PM.
