There are so many lowlifes on the Internet when it comes to marketing that it is hard to pick an overall winner, but the Aurora pop-up people have to be pretty close to the top.
If you don't have the Aurora pop-ups, you likely don't know what I am talking about. But if you do, you are nodding your head right now, if not slamming your head against the keyboard.
Some background: You know you have the Aurora pop-ups if every minute while browsing you get a pop-up window with the word "Aurora" in the very top blue bar of Internet Explorer. You also may see them called "Ceres." These pop-ups are from a special type of adware called "transponders" that are designed to send information from your personal computer to computer servers all over the world.
The really important issue is these transponders are not easily removed. Normal adware removal tools give it a shot, but every time you reboot your PC or restart your browser, these things replicate themselves, change file names and reinstall.
One of the worst offenders is a company called Direct Revenue (www.direct-revenue.com), which is responsible for Aurora, Ceres and a couple of more. They hilariously banner some of these as "a better Internet." If you have Aurora or other pop-ups, do note I am not suggesting you visit this Web page.
The company claims everyone who installed their software -- it comes with free solitaire, mahjongg and other applications on the Web -- did so knowingly by accepting the licensing agreement. There's no way for me to verify that, but I wonder why there's no option in "Add/Remove Programs" to get rid of it?
Several people who have written about this company have received nice "cease and desist" letters from their attorney, to boot.
There are lots of transponders and it's hard to list them all, but if you visit this excellent info site at www.webhelper4u.com, you can find out more than you probably want to know.
So how to remove it? Go to "My Computer" and open the C drive. Go to "Tools," then "Folder Options." Go to "View," then check "Show hidden files and folders." Then open the Windows folder and see if you have a file called "nail.exe." If you do, join the infected club.
The manual way of removing it is quite complex. If you Google "nail.exe and Aurora," you will find a couple of methods and I will post one in my blog.
The Direct-Revenue people have set up a Web site with a removal tool at www.mypctuneup.com. The funny part of calling this a "tuneup" is your PC wouldn't be sluggish in the first place if they hadn't infected it.
I have tested this tool on three infected PCs and it removed the Aurora transponder if you allow it to connect to the Internet during the uninstall process. The folks at Web Helper (above) in an article dated May 25 on their home page also investigated what the mypctuneup.com application actually did and found this latest version is not harmful.
I find it amazingly distasteful that companies exist with the entire purpose of annoying people, don't you?
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: After many requests, a repeat -- my column archive and blog is located at www.cyberdads.com/blog.html.
James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair company, and a computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e- mail address is jim@cyberdads.com.
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