Adware takes over browser home page and default search engine

[57FS]

In the process of downloading and installing Firefox, it appears that my son also said "yes" in installing a bunch of other programs, including something that is clearly adware. It appears to be executing some sort of script to change my home page to "feed.helpbar.com" which immediately re-directs to "www.browse-search.com". Initially it was throwing up a lot of pop-ups. I clamped down on the windows permissions, setting most of my "enable" switches to "prompt" for running scrips, activeX controls, cookies, and the like. This has dampened the activity somewhat but has not eliminated an "unknown program" from continuing the home page and search engine takeovers.

It just took a step up. It is now blocking my access to google, and seems to be forcing a firewall instruction to prevent chrome from getting to the internet - at least for some sites.

I ran the scanning tools mentioned in the instructions, but it didn't produce an "AdwCleaner" scan log that I can find.

 

[TwinHeadedEagle]

Hello,

Welcome to MT


Please download AdwCleaner by Xplode and save to your Desktop.

Double click on AdwCleaner.exe to run the tool.

• Click on the Scan button.
• After the scan has finished click on the Clean button.

Press OK when asked to close all programs and follow the onscreen prompts.
Press OK again to allow AdwCleaner to restart the computer and complete the removal process.

• After rebooting, a logfile report (AdwCleaner[S0].txt) will open automatically.
• Post logfile will also be saved in the C:\AdwCleaner folder.

Please download zoek.zip or zoek.rar by smeenk (

) from here or here and save it to your Desktop.
Unpack the archive...

• Close any open browsers
• Temporarily disable your AntiVirus program. (If necessary)
  If you are unsure how to do this please read this or this Instruction.
  
• Double click on zoek.exe to run the tool .
  Please wait while the tool does not start...
  
• Copy the text present inside the code box below and paste it into the large window in the zoek tool:
  NOTICE: This script was written specifically for this user, for use on that particular machine. Running this on another machine may cause damage to the operating system
  
  

  createsrpoint;
  gpt.ini;z 
  C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy;v
  C:\Windows\SysWOW64\GroupPolicy;v 
  StandardSearch; 
  emptyfolderscheck; 
  installer-list; 
  installedprogs; 
  uninstall-list;

• Click on
  
  button.
  Please wait until a logreport will open (this can be after reboot)
  
• Save notepad to your Desktop and attach here zoek-results.log
  Note: It will also create a log in the C:\ directory named "zoek-results.log"