SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
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Good morning Ladies and Gents.
I'm rather selfishly after some assistance/knowledge regarding something that i've completely stupidly and inadvertantly downloaded to my own personal and very new laptop.
When hunting for the Christmas edition of Doctor Who in early January, I attempted to open a streaming file of the show.
The site I was on, told me I needed what I believe was called 'Illivid' software to open or download the file.
Like an idiot I did so and not only didn't receive the show to watch, but unknowingly invited this 'searchnu.com/406' thing to sneak in under the radar and attach itself to my search engine.
Now every time I try to open Internet Explorer or Chrome, this damn searchnu thing opens.
From what i've read, it's classed as a search engine hijacker rather that a conventional virus and this is why my Norton 360 won't touch it. I've done a full scan and it's still there every time without fail on both Chrome and I.E
I'm pretty worried as i've also read that it's either a form of spyware, and/or can invite mallware & spyware onto one's computer.
I've tried uninstalling everything from that date and around that date that isn't essential to the operation of the computer, but sadly to no effect.
There seems to be a lot of misleading info on the net, so I thought i'd try you folks as i've been on here for years and trust the site implicitly.
I would under normal circumstances have dashed down to PC World and paid them to remove it as i'm obviously too thick to deal with it myself, but I lost my job on Thursday and am still hugely in debt after Christmas and am not signing on either so i'm too skint to pay PC World anything.
Sorry for the great long essay, but I wanted to clarify as best I could, in one go.
Thanks very much in advance for any assistance that any of you guys and gals can render.
Cheers, Jim.
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Oh and btw, I already searched the name of this hijacker thing on the CS search button and no results came up, hence me starting a new topic.
Cheers again. 
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Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
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Sorry to hear about your job mate.
Have you tried to uninstall the iLivid thing from Control Panel?
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Afternoon Sam Cheers Chief. I did indeed do that straight away. Annoyingly it made no difference.
There seems to be loads of people having the same problem. Some people have had it stuck on their PC for months.
From what reading i've done, there's some contradictory info out there, plus there's some really dodgy sites that can actually make the problem worse as they offer a downloadable solution that is basically spyware/malware.
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Dave
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Registered: 26th Feb 01
Location: Lancs
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Have you changed the homepage on Chrome/IE back to the default setting?
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Sorry Dave. I'm a proper f*ckwit. How do I do that sir? 
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Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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In IE it's Tools > Options, Chrome you click on the rightmost toolbar button (it has three horizontal looking lines on it) and go to Settings, it's under the 'appearance' section.
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Dave
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Registered: 26th Feb 01
Location: Lancs
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As Sam said, you will be able to set the search engine back to Google there as well.
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Ah ha. Nice one gents.
I will endeavour to attempt this now.
I am uber stupid at present though as am currently on strong prescription pain killers and Valium, owing to nerve damage in my back, so it may take me a while and a few attempts.
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Simon_16v
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Registered: 14th Aug 06
Location: Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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Doesn't make any difference, my girlfriend did this mistake too
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Dave
Member
Registered: 26th Feb 01
Location: Lancs
User status: Offline
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If that fixes it download some sort of malware programme like Malwarebytes and search for how to fully remove it, it seems there could be a bit to do to get rid yet.
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Sam
In IE it's Tools > Options, Chrome you click on the rightmost toolbar button (it has three horizontal looking lines on it) and go to Settings, it's under the 'appearance' section.
I think i've sorted Chrome Sam. But I don't know for certain if it's totally removed.
As far as IE, where do I need to go after 'Options' Sir?
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Simon_16v
Doesn't make any difference, my girlfriend did this mistake too
Oh shit. Is she still stuck with it Simon?
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Dave
Member
Registered: 26th Feb 01
Location: Lancs
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by SVM 286
quote:
Originally posted by Sam
In IE it's Tools > Options, Chrome you click on the rightmost toolbar button (it has three horizontal looking lines on it) and go to Settings, it's under the 'appearance' section.
I think i've sorted Chrome Sam. But I don't know for certain if it's totally removed.
As far as IE, where do I need to go after 'Options' Sir?
Under the general tab there should be an option to set your homepage.
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave
Have you changed the homepage on Chrome/IE back to the default setting?
This is an interesting Point Dave. When I was trying to sort Chrome just now, the 'Reset to default theme' icon under 'appearance' in 'settings' isn't highlighted and won't do anything when I click on it.
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Balls!  Chrome isn't sorted. Just shut everything down and reopened Chrome. It still opened on Searchnu. It's like bloody AIDS.
Can't understand why it won't bugger off.
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Dave
Member
Registered: 26th Feb 01
Location: Lancs
User status: Offline
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They can be really stubborn, sometimes resetting your homepage isn't enough but it's an easy place to start.
On Chrome, go to settings, under "on startup" select "open a specific page", set this to whatever you want, Google should do, under "search" set the search engine to Google. Restart chrome and go back to these settings, see if they have stayed the same.
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Thank you Dave. I'll try that now.
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adiohead
Member
Registered: 28th Sep 01
User status: Offline
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I have removed iLivid from a friend's laptop.
It's a pain but you can remove it. I followed the steps on this site:
http://www.malwareremoval.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=57145
and this site:
http://community.trendmicro.com/t5/Malware-Discussions/Removing-iLivid-amp-Searchqu/td-p/83894
Ran scans in both normal mode and safe mode. too.
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Gary
Premium Member
Registered: 22nd Nov 06
Location: West Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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 He returns!
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Thanks adiohead sir
I just tried to read those links and my head nearly exploded though.
Is it not a little suspicious though that one of the posters on one of those forums is a dude who claims to be from searchnu and is 'there to help'.
I've seen this on other forums whilst searching the problem yesterday and they always have a suspiciously low post count, like 1 post for instance.
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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BTW, you boys are all bloody geniuses. Thanks so much for taking the time to help. It's really cool of you all.
This is why I love CS.
Ian really seems to have brought together a massive group of decent and likeminded individuals who are invariably ready, willing AND able to assist each other at the drop of a hat.
Bloody brilliant place to be.  
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Oh and hi Gaz
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adiohead
Member
Registered: 28th Sep 01
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by SVM 286
Thanks adiohead sir
I just tried to read those links and my head nearly exploded though.
Is it not a little suspicious though that one of the posters on one of those forums is a dude who claims to be from searchnu and is 'there to help'.
I've seen this on other forums whilst searching the problem yesterday and they always have a suspiciously low post count, like 1 post for instance.
yeah, forgot to say, ignore that guy from iLivid (but use the scanner in the second link). iLivid hides in the registry and everywhere (changes a few dll files too) so that when you think it's gone it'll pop back up. I ran all those tools plus spybot in start up mode, malwarebytes in safe mode, etc, etc.
It'll eventually go once you've found all the hijacked files. The only other suggestion is to backup, format and re-install windows. But for a few hours of scanning I'd just remove it.
[Edited on 03-02-2013 by adiohead]
[Edited on 13-02-2013 by adiohead]
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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What's a dll file btw?
And I take it that I should refrain from any transactions etc (such as renewing my premium account) until i'm certain that all this crap is gone?
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