Q. I need help in getting rid of Lop.com, a Web advertising scheme that has taken over my browser and prevents me from setting any home page except for Lop.com and affiliates.
I have tried everything that I know to do. Just when I think it is gone, here it comes again.
I have Windows XP Professional and all kinds of anti-spyware, including Norton Internet security, Ad-Aware SE, Spybot, Microsoft AntiSpyware, Spyware Doctor, Registry Mechanic, a trial version of Ewido Security Suite, Nailfix, DelDomains.inf, Stinger, SpywareBlaster, CWshredder, AboutBuster and CCleaner.
Vicci Stone @charter.net
A. Count yourself among the large number of people whose computers have been hijacked by a high-pressure advertising outfit that calls itself Live Online Portal, or Lop.com. This is a particularly nasty scheme because it makes a large number of changes to infected computers, including rewriting the Windows registry and scattering hidden files across the hard drive.
Worse still, Lop.com comes in several variants that must be dealt with individually. Some variants add booby-trapped bookmarks to the favorites list that can be activated after the spyware has been removed. That’s why it keeps coming back.
Many of the programs you mention in that long list of spyware fighters you’ve tried, including the free version of Ad-Aware called SE, include modules to remove Lop.com and its assorted elements. The problem is that even after it is cleaned, the spyware can return by way of Microsoft’s embattled ActiveX tool if you later visit associated sites.
So the first thing you need to do is to upgrade your computer to Windows XP Service Pack 2, which includes a tool that will block ActiveX at the user’s option. You can download SP2 at http://support.microsoft.com.
Then you need to repeat the Lop.com removal using Ad-Aware SE, which is free at www.lavasoft.com. With Ad-Aware SE running, click on the Scan icon, and when the scan is over, look for the Critical Object menu that pops up. Make sure that each item found is quarantined and removed.
Look closely to see if the software tells you that it couldn’t remove certain files because they were in use. Note these files and then reboot the computer and delete them by hand.
Pay close attention afterward when your browser beeps, and the yellow line appears below the toolbar saying an ActiveX tool was blocked. The blocked site could be booby-trapped. Lop.com uses a collection of four-letter domain names for these sites, so beware particularly if your ActiveX blocker stops a site with such a name.
Q. Why do icons created by saving Web pages to desktop or favorites change from their brand icon to an Internet Explorer “e” with a page behind it? For example, Dictionary.com is a stack of books, IMdb (Internet Movie Database) is a ticket stub and so on.
Why do they do that? What can I do to stop it?
D.D. Bacca, Chicago
A. I hear from two types of folks on this issue, D.D.
One group hates having these tiny brand-name icons displayed on their favorites list and wants to get rid of them. The other half loves them and frets when they stop appearing.
These displays come from tiny picture files just 16 pixels square that are named favicon.ico and posted on a Web site. Most browsers are hard-wired to seek out these files each time a site is accessed. If they find one, the display occurs.
Those who get curious about how favicons work can find an informative tool from the open-source group Mindzilla at www.mindzilla.com/grabber.php. This “icon grabber” lets users type in a Web address and displays the favicon for that site if it has one correctly installed.
As you note, getting favicons to work as advertised seems spotty at best. If a file is even one dot larger or smaller than 16 by 16 pixels, it won’t work. Also, when users clear the temporary Internet files to improve performance, the tiny images are lost.
When that happens one usually needs to remove a site from the bookmarks and then go back to the site and save it once again as a bookmark. This forces the browser to restore a copy of the image to the browser’s temporary files, and, if all else is in order, the display will return.
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Stopping the favicons from displaying seems far more trouble than it is worth, because it requires changing the master Windows registry files that lie at the heart of the operating system.
To do this, click on Start, then Run and type in regedit and click OK to call up the Windows registry editor. Open the line at the top called HKEY(underscore)CLASSES(underscore)ROOT and scroll down the list of entries until you reach “InternetShortcut.” Click on that and look for the EditFlags item in the pane to the right. Change the value to 00000000. Then go back to the InternetShortcut item and delete the IconHandler item. That address is HKEY(underscore)CLASSES(underscore)ROOT
InternetShortcut
shellex
IconHandler.
That’s a big batch of trouble to fix some very small icons.
Q. I find myself in need of using a laptop more as I travel and am looking for an easy way to sync Microsoft Outlook between the desktop and laptop. Can you help?
Steve Shedden @comcast.net
A. Many businesses use costly software known as Microsoft Exchange Server to handle such syncing, but there is a pretty straightforward way to do this by hand, Mr. S.
It amounts to getting a rather large USB thumb drive or some other removable storage device and then dragging the Outlook data files from the desktop PC onto it. You then use it to move the Outlook data onto the laptop. When the trip is over, you can drag the changed files back to the desktop computer.
But remember, once you take up this system, you must be rigorous in following the same procedure every time to avoid confusion and data loss.
Microsoft Outlook stores all of its data, from e-mail to contacts to calendars, in files ending in PST and PAB and keeps them in a specified folder that is the same on both machines. Specifically, Outlook data files can be found at C:/Documents and Settings/Owner/Local Settings/Application Data/Microsoft/Outlook.
When you get back to the office, make it the first order of business to drag the changed files from the laptop back to the desktop PC’s Outlook folder. Then accept the offer to overwrite the files.
A final word: If you decide to burn the files onto CDs, they will be tagged as “read only” by Windows. So after the transfer, you need to find the icons for the Outlook files and give each a right-click and then remove the “read only” attribute.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim.