'Rebate Informer/Giant'

[Re6/6]

Whilst downloading 'Google Streetview' an uninvited guest appeared with it in the shape of 'Rebate Informer', an American 'discount' site, quite useless to me even if I wanted it. The log-in page appears every time that I fire up the computer. Extremely annoying. I've checked out various removal methods from various sites, all to no avail. Firstly I tried the usual 'uninstall', but the computer tells me that there's 'nothing to uninstall'. I tried 'system reset/restart' to a point before it arrived, still to no avail.

 

According to one American site, it's not a virus/malware/spyware, but whatever it is, it's very persistent.

 

Anybody out there had a similar problem?

 

Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

Thanks

 

John.

[Talltim]

You don't actually need to download Streetview (well any more than you need to download any web page), could you point to where you downloaded 'it' from?

Does sound very virusy to me.

[gordon s]

May be worth trying Spybot- Search and Destroy, John. It's free and seems to dig out some of the more persistent nuisance sites. I have used it without any problems as an add on to Norton and touch wood, have no issues. I've set it to scan every day and it certainly seems to do the job.

 

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

[Guest Dutch_Master]

+1 on the virus thingie John... Streetview is part of Google Earth and Maps, so no seperate program to fetch! And Google doesn't use 3rd party distributors for their stuff... (i.e.: get it from Google directly, otherwise it's certainly malicious) Advise: scan the PC with an anti-virus scanner and have it fixed sooner rather then later...

[eastwestdivide]

According to one American site, it's not a virus/malware/spyware, but whatever it is, it's very persistent.

If I search google for Rebate Informer, the vast majority of results seem to be "help me remove it", so it's almost definitely malware of one kind or another. Difficulty is choosing the right advice to remove it.

[Glorious NSE]

Go to 'Add/remove' software and look thru what's installed- I've got as suspicion that there is a self-uninstall in there ...

 

Suspect you're right, but these things are by nature sometimes a little sneaky and call themselves something innocuous/important on that list to try and stop you just ditching them!

[Danemouth]

The fact that this crock of sh** got installed in the first place suggests that your Anti-Virus and Internet Security software isn't up to the job - you do have it installed and it's up to date isn't it

 

The advice about Spybot is excellent - a good product which, with a little luck should address the situation.

 

Whatever you do make sure you have a really good Internet Security package installed and keep it up to date. Beware Google advice - the bad guys have been known to poison search engine results so be very careful before clicking any links!

 

Dave

 

p.s. the day job is Information Security including computer systems

[Kenton]

The fact that this crock of sh** got installed in the first place suggests that your Anti-Virus and Internet Security software isn't up to the job - you do have it installed and it's up to date isn't i

You may find it came in on the back of Google. Google and even Norton AV use this rather nasty technique of dropping a self installer in on your PC. They both will add toolbars (for your convenience) to your system which effectively self check when you start up that the toolbar is installed. Removing the toolbar is a waste of time as it is just reinstalled by its sneaky partner. They have to be disabled and removed together

 

A handy little utility is WinPatrol (Scotty) http://www.winpatrol.com/nonplus.html but I'm sure there are others. I believe Norton also has the capability (but of course cannot be turned on itself).

[Tim V]

Since it runs at start-up, suggests it is in your startup group.

 

Assuming Windoze, click start, run type msconfig look for the programme in the boxes, take the tick out, it won't run again. When you restart your computer, you'll see a message about the configuration editor, just OK that.

[Raffles]

Assuming that it has got into your startup list, run whatever AntiVirus you have in safe mode.

[28XX]

A tip to get rid of the Norton self installer which worked for me is:

 

Shut the machine down, unplug the internet connection, reboot, use uninstall utility, shut down again, reconnect to the net, reboot. Simples!

[Re6/6]

Very many thanks all.