MSIE 6.0; AOL Browser; Searchit; Firefox

[valemike]

I just downloaded AOL's browser today, and it flagged me about some
potential Spyware called "Searchit". I clicked the button to go ahead
and block it, and this caused my attempts at opening other browsers
(e.g. MSIE, Firefox) to cause CPU utilization to spike, and these
browsers never opened up.

The only way to fix it was to backtrack and enable "searchit" again.


Is "searchit" a true pest to have? I don't remember installing it.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

AOL (or AOHell) is not truely recommended. The standard browser are MSIE
and Firefox.

You now need to do a complete sypware check with known "clean" ant-spyware
utilities. Such are:

AD Aware SE
Spybot: Search and Destroy
CWShredder
Microsoft AntiSpyware.

 

[pcbutts1]

See this http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453072546 then
download, install, update and run all of the following.

Ad-Aware
http://www.pcbutts1.com/downloads/aawsepersonal.exe

Spybot search and destroy
http://www.pcbutts1.com/downloads/spybotsd14.exe

Ewido Security Suite Trial version
http://www.pcbutts1.com/downloads/ewidosetup.exe

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta1)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...A2-6A57-4C57-A8BD-DBF62EDA9671&displaylang=en


--


The best live web video on the internet http://www.seedsv.com/webdemo.htm
NEW Embedded system W/Linux. We now sell DVR cards.
See it all at http://www.seedsv.com/products.htm
Sharpvision simply the best http://www.seedsv.com

 

[valemike]

I just downloaded AOL's browser today, and it flagged me about some
potential Spyware called "Searchit". I clicked the button to go ahead
and block it, and this caused my attempts at opening other browsers
(e.g. MSIE, Firefox) to cause CPU utilization to spike, and these
browsers never opened up.

The only way to fix it was to backtrack and enable "searchit" again.


Is "searchit" a true pest to have? I don't remember installing it.

Thanks for the Microsoft AntiSpyware beta info. I never knew it
existed. Now i have that running in parallel with all this redundant
AOL stuff. I'd like to uninstall AOL altogether, but the last time i
did that, it caused me to lose my Internet connections, and i had to
re-install everything from scratch. oh well.

 

[PA Bear]

Is AOL your ISP? What exactly is "AOL's browser" and from where did you
download it? What flagged this potential Spyware called "Searchit"?

eTrust Spyware Encyclopedia - Searchit:
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453072546

McAfee Inc.:
http://vil.mcafeesecurity.com/vil/content/v_130931.htm

doxdesk.com: database: Pugi:
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/Pugi.html

Checking for/Help with Hijackware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=5878
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/data/prevention.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/archive/tshoot.html
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/Malware_Defence.htm
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/

When all else fails, HijackThis v1.99.1
(http://aumha.net/downloads/hijackthis.zip) is the preferred tool to use.
It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. **Post
your log to http://forums.spywareinfo.com/,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html or http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30
for expert analysis, not here.**

 

[NotMe]

Well...the original post was not mine, but...
AOL uses IE as their internal browser, they just strip the MS header off and
use AOL controls.
AOL also has it's own external browser, but I thought it was still in Beta.
It looks/feels a lot like Netscrape 8.
In AOL 9, there is a spyware scanner installed by default. It runs
automatically.
If it finds 'known spyware' it gives you the option to disable/remove it.

 

[PA Bear]

AOL uses IE as their internal browser, they just strip the MS header off

and use AOL controls.

Kinda/sorta, but you only get that browser when you install the regular &
full AOL software package (which is why I asked OP...).

AOL also has it's own external browser, but I thought it was still in
Beta. It looks/feels a lot like Netscrape 8.
In AOL 9, there is a spyware scanner installed by default. It runs
automatically.

Yes, but does this free-standing "AOL browser"-cum-Netscape 8 (I'd never use
it) include the anti-spyware stuff? (I'd doubt it.)

 

[valemike]

AOL isn't my only ISP. Actually i use DSL for the actual connection,
but only kept AOL around because of my long-time email accounts.

The browser can execute w/o having the AOL package running, but i'm not
sure if it was freely available to the general public for download.

According to Mcafee, it appears to be a benign adware that gets
installed ("with your consent") with other bundled software.

THis beta AOL browser comes with a simple Spyware searcher. Only after
installing this did i find out that Searchit is a potential spyware,
since Mcafee never flagged me. In fact, Microsoft's beta anti-spyware
download does not flag me about it either.

So if i have Internet Explorer running, and i then start the spyware
searcher from the AOL Beta Browser toolbar, it flags me about Searchit.
I hit 'yes' to block Searchit, and it then zaps the Internet Explorer
browser to disappear. Later on, when I try running Internet Explorer by
double-clicking on it, it never opens up. I double click on it again,
and it finally opens. Now when I look at my running processes
(ctrl-alt-del), i see more than one instance of "iexplore.exe" running.


It seems that AOL's anti-spyware inhibits the first instance of
iexplore.exe, but allows other instances to run if they're lucky. So
before i know it, i have several instances of iexplore.exe taking up
memory!

I can get around it by not using Internet Explorer altogether, but this
is just plain annoying. Makes me want to re-install the factory
contents of my laptop all over again!

 

[valemike]

Yeah, this beta AOL browser installs the trigger-happy spyware package,
as a button on the toolbar.

Mike

 

[PA Bear]

OIC, AOL "Bring Your Own Access."

Anyway, I'd say the real troublemaker is the AOL-bundled antispyware app,
Mike. Tell us, if the AOL Browser isn't loaded, does IE work or has the
antispyware thing totally killed IE now?

 

[valemike]

OIC, AOL "Bring Your Own Access."

Anyway, I'd say the real troublemaker is the AOL-bundled antispyware app,
Mike. Tell us, if the AOL Browser isn't loaded, does IE work or has the
antispyware thing totally killed IE now?

I'm trying to recall since i don't have my affected laptop with me
right now. But this is what i remember yesterday:

Yes, starting IE works just fine when the AOL standalone beta browser
isn't loaded. So i have an IE instance running, and then i later open
an AOL browser. The bundled-in AOL spyware then flags me that it found
Searchit, and asks if i want to block it. So when I say yes, it blocks
me, and kills the MSIE instance altogether, and it disappears. Later
double-clicks on the IE icon then cause iexplore.exe to launch, but it
gets stuck. Thus the IE browser never launches. I can double-click on
it a few more times, and my CPU utilization goes up more and more. Like
i said, i can eventually get IE to launch the browser again, but by
now, everything is sluggish, and I have to kill all IE instances.

Now if i have a freshly booted machine, and i launch the AOL browser,
then since there is yet no IE instance running, then i don't get any
alerts of Searchit being present.

There is an option though in the aol antispyware to allow things like
Searchit, Gator, etc. to continue to run. If i allow Searchit to run,
then IE has no problems running later.

I wonder if Searchit is truly loaded in my machine, or perhaps the AOL
antispyware is sounding a false alarm and being more of a pest if
anything.

 

[Don Taylor]

I wonder if Searchit is truly loaded in my machine, or perhaps the AOL
antispyware is sounding a false alarm and being more of a pest if
anything.

I have one user who tried AOL antispyware a few weeks ago. It promptly
flagged Advanced Keylogger and TV Media spyware running. I siezed the
machine and spent all afternoon trying to verify this. None of half a
dozen different tools could independently confirm this.

Then it turned out that the AOL update to their antispyware about the
middle of last month started telling LOTS of people they have Advanced
Keylogger and none of the people who tried to verify this could find it.

AOL then told me to wait a few days and see if it went away. As of
yesterday the problem was still there, and it claimed to have found
a third spyware program, all still cannot be confirmed by AdAware,
Microsoft, Norton, Sysclean, Search and Destroy and manual directions
to locate and remove... so I'm guessing they aren't there. My mail
to aol was not polite.

 

[Plato]

I just downloaded AOL's browser today, and it flagged me about some

Got a deathwish?

 

[Jone Doe]

Don't block it, get rid of it. Yes, it's a 'targeted advertising' toolbar
search object. You can learn more at
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453072546

 

[PA Bear]

See my first post in this thread. If the usual & reliable anti-malware
tools (including HijackThis log interpretation by an expert) don't find
Searchit, well..., now you know what to do with that AOL browser *and* it's
anti-spyware feature.