PUP.Optional.Highlightly a nasty one!

Anyone here ever get the PUP.Optional.Highlightly browser highjacker?
There should be laws about these programs that high-jack your browsers and make you work hard to get rid of them.
I got this one off of Youtube.com on Dish site. When I tried to click on a video on how to ship the units back, I got this one, saying I need to update my flash player... so like a dummy I click on it and start the run program and my Malwarebytes Anti-Malware flagged it, so I stopped the install.... TOO LATE!!! and it now this same page shows up whenever I click on a new sessions in any browser, it would go to a page like this:

Whatever you do, DO NOT click on that "OK" box!

It also has a sidebar popup on the right on different ads in every session.
It took me two hours and three programs to get rid of it... After some searching, this site got it done:
Remove Highlightly Ads (Virus Removal Guide)

I HATE these PUP highjackers. Wish there was a way to get back at them!
If there is... PM me

 

One of your measures for fending off future nasties should be a custom hosts file.

John

 

Thanks for the info! Have you used this John?

I find about once every 5-6 weeks I get something like those and they are a PAIN. I'm pretty careful too.
I learned to use the custom installs whenever possible too.

 

Yes. I've used a custom hosts file for years. It's a case of install and forget (although it should be updated from time to time).

John

 

Thanks John Ratsey for that info...

 

I got hit by a nasty one, V9, a few weeks ago. MalwareBytes, avg, roguekiller, adware remover, spybot...not one of them could remove the final viral file. They wiped out a bunch of ancillary programs it installed, along with taking over my browser.


I found it was hijacking my registry that had my proxy info in it. Would always point me to 127.0.0.1, or some like that. There was always about 12-15% usage of my CPU, when there should've been zero. I knew something was running in the background.


Even editing the registry would work. It would wipe out my changes, and revert to the crap it wanted. Must've installed itself in my o/s's kernel.


Ended up having to do a factory restore. Good thing it was just my gaming PC, and not my one with all my important info on it.


Would love to literally kill the er that made that malware.

 

I notice your notebook has only 4MB memory. Adding 4 more to make it 8MB memory will help speed things up.
You probably have a lot of bloatware loading up and other junk. Sometimes things you download add stuff you don't know and it really slows you down, so try running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware & AVG to speed things up... both are free.

 

I suffered from the same problem and I discovered that most software do not do complete removal of PUP things. With little digging I found a little tool called Junkware Removal Tool which removed all unwanted stuff from my computer. So I highly recommend as second scan - to do with it, it will remove all other things that first program dont remove.

 

Regular imaging of hard drives will save you a lot of pain down the road. Well to be fair it's mainly SSDs that benefit since secure erasing and nuking the entire SSD takes literally less than 1 minute as opposted to hours using DBAN.

My "default no" strategy has worked quite well. Also, the more "urgent" or "critical" the update, the more I'm suscipious of it. Helps to keep your calm and read everything before clicking, because if you read the microscopic font at the bottom of the picture you posted, the disclaimer clearly says it's not affiliated or authorized by Adobe.