My hard drive has been infected by Conduit

I purged Firefox and in the process have created some sort of problem with JavaScript. I reinstalled all of my old add-ons except after having been totally crazy again by Noscript I deleted it. Between Ghostery, Quick java, Cookie Monster and a slew of other defensive programs I feel reasonably secure. With Noscript overruling all other programs I had to allow an entire page which might have who knows what in it.

Chrome has forgotten my identity and I have been trying to get it back, preferably with my old extensions and settings. I can't even open it to sign in. Whatever variation you use Google or other search engines to access it, it brags about its greatness and asks if you want to download it.

As to IE10, I am never going to open it again. Therefore my question is, "Do I still have to make it conduit-proof?"

Therefore I am still at Step 2.

Hi cottonball.

I must admit that some of these programs that you want me to use really require more expertise than I have. I'm going to try to get an expert friend help me through this, after I get through Step 2.

GerryR

IE 10 got nothing to do with it..I'm running IE 10 now, ya never should have installed java, I don't and if a website insists on its' use, I move on to another. M$ is the only one that uses Silverlight, so ditto.
As for Chrome[ I don't use] or FF you should always back up the profile folders and .ini files to removables or burn a CD.
No Script is usually a dependable add-on but then I stopped using it after the first year of release because I won't run Java. At least in my circle, on other forums Java is falling out of favour.
You came up with the best idea, have someone who can see your machine to tutor you one on one.
I wish you good luck.:)

This question seems to have been ignored, although I suspect that it is being worked on. Once somebody removes conduit from his/her system and the Big Three browsers, what is going to prevent reinfection? As long as conduit is running around on the Internet, can't Conduit simply reinfect one's system?

GerryR

I finally was notified by a friend that Google, in its infinite wisdom, has changed my username and password for Chrome to my Gmail name and password. Fortunately it retained all of my extensions. I use Firefox pretty exclusively.

Blueguy,

The only program that I don't feel good about is RogueKiller. That's a pretty long tutorial and my high school French has long since deserted me.

Gerry

Blueguy,

Could you expand on that. My problem with Noscript is the number of times that it interferes with reading a page, viewing or hearing a video, etc. Why do you find Java useless? I must admit that I don't know of anything that it does specifically that is crucial to my work.

Thanks,

Gerry

I didn't say useless, my meaning was that it is insecure.
Criticism of Java - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.howtogeek.com/122934/java...and-heres-how/

GerryR said:

This question seems to have been ignored, although I suspect that it is being worked on. Once somebody removes conduit from his/her system and the Big Three browsers, what is going to prevent reinfection? As long as conduit is running around on the Internet, can't Conduit simply reinfect one's system?

GerryR

Frankly, I have no experience removing Conduit because I never let it install, referring to a previous post here, I was installing the update to SUPER <c>, now eRightsoft, in order to make it freeware puts adware
into the installer, Majorgeeks warns you about that ahead of time, as well as the ASK toolbar.
However eRightsoft gives the user a break by designing the installer package into giving you the right to opt out. This is where the adage "When you rush...you make mistakes" comes in. So during the install process I just take it one step at a time, clicking on 'do not accept' and 'decline' until I reach the actual
step for the main application. That way eRightsoft gets some funding and you don't get stuck with, not necessarily malware, but badly behaving programs.
My only other suggestion, if you removed the main portion of Conduit, is to use CCleaner or my favourite,
EasyCleaner {Majorgeeks or SourceForge} to clear out the registry entries and any 'breadcrumbs' from the boot and storage drives.

Some where along the line, you wanted something, downloaded it but rushed, therefore allowing it to be installed, Conduit doesn't actively do it, you would have had to click an accept button.
You were given excellent instructions by a more senior member on removal, follow them, then try a cleaner.

Right from the page "Cottonball" directed you to.

"You should always pay attention when installing software because often, a software installer includes optional installs, such as this browser hijacker. Be very careful what you agree to install. Always opt for the custom installation and deselect anything that is not familiar, especially optional software that you never wanted to download and install in the first place. It goes without saying that you should not install software that you don’t trust."

Blueguy,

Actually I can be very specific about how I got conduit. I had not yet used IE10. When I turned it on I got the conduit toolbar, Babylon search as my new default search engine, flashing ads, non-flashing ads, and banners as well as a new home page. I closed it. When I turned on Firefox I still had the Conduit toolbar, Babylon search, etc, just no ads. I reset my home page. Then I reset my "changed" download site. Next using Firefox - Options I got rid of the conduit toolbar. I rebooted all was well on my homepage back to Yahoo. The Yahoo toolbar was now where the conduit one had been. I then googled third party software until I had made IE10 safe. I turned on IE10 and got Yahoo as my home page, an inferior version of the Yahoo Toolbar and no crap. They did replace Google as my default search engine with Bing which was hardly amazing. I changed it back to Google, screwed around with IE10 and decided that I didn't like it as much as Firefox (my first choice) or Chrome (second). I thought that all was well with the world. A few months later I noticed that conduit.exe was in Program Files(86). I searched my hard drives for incidences of conduit. There were more than 50. I used regedit - edit - find and find next and found out that my registry was overwhelmed with conduit. I backed up the entire system (with validation, of course). I went back to an April backup for recovery purposes. It was the last one before I had opened IE10. I back up frequently so I have to delete backups. I recovered April - no sign of conduit anywhere. I then used a June recovery (post opening IE10). Both hard drives and the registry were thick with conduit. So I recovered my latest backup and ran Malwarebytes, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, and SuperAntiSpyware Pro none of them found a thing. I wrote my first message to this forum. On the good advice I ran Adwcleaner. I was left with about 50 incidences of conduit in the registry and twelve files with conduit in their names on my boot drive. I gave myself Administrator privileges and deleted the files (none were programs) from my hard drive. I went back to the Registry and much to my surprise there was only mention of conduit left. It referred to the conduit toolbar, so I knew it wasn't the legitimate conduit program. I deleted it. For two days the Registry and hard drives were clean. Then, as if by magic, since I had not installed anything, there were four incidences of conduit appeared in the Registry. I reran Adwcleaner and they were gone. That's when I recontacted this forum. This was not my fault. This was the direct result of opening IE10 for the first time. I won't open IE10 again. That's okay! I use Firefox 90% of the time and Chrome 10%.

I am ultra-ultra careful about installations with gifts. BTW it is no longer safe to download from CNET. They don't ask about their gifts, they just give them to you as well as making you a member of the CNET form. Fortunately I read EULAs completely.

My expert friend turned me down.

I'm not sure what my next move will be. Right now my system is clean of conduit.

This was not my fault - it happened when I opened IE10. How was I to know that it was that unsafe. A relational database developer European friend of mine said that the worst virus on the Internet is Microsoft. I think that he's right.