What do I do now?

Take it to a computer store and pay to have them clean it up. Sometimes the crap is just too much to deal with at home.

Agree with @zenvelo. Take it to Best Buy and pay them to clean it for you. There are things you can do to do it yourself, but it can be a pain in the butt. But if you want to try to tackle it, the way I do it is is uninstall everything that I don’t recognize or don’t trust. This can be tricky as sometimes programs are required programs for your computer, so if in doubt, google the name.

Then download an antivirus program, I use Avast, which is good, but you have to uncheck options to prevent annoying popups. Avoid Kapersky, Mcafee, and Norton, as they have a habit of being intrusive. Also download Malwarbytes free and run that. Lastly download ccleaner and run that.

Make sure when you download something new that you do NOT install it as “recommended settings” but you go through all the options as often many of them have annoying toolbars (like ASK toolbar) that aren’t exactly malware, but they are annoying.

OK. Well, shit. I had an IT guy in (my future son in law) and he thought it was some AVG program. He uninstalled it but there must be some hidden files because it’s still controlling my stuff.

AVG sucks.

If you want, I can remote into your computer and try to clean it up for you. But I can’t guarantee anything.

I ran AVAST. Man after 2 hours I was able to delete some infected folders but then it started on another scan and it was stuck on 75% for another hour. I finally backed out of that and I’ll scan it tonight when I do to bed.
The crap is still there.
I’ll let you know what I want to do.

I don’t know the answer yet, but if I can just down load all the stuff that’s on Carbonite I may just delete my OS and start over!

Download and run Malwarebytes. Free version.

I already did that @ibstubro. 3 times. I also ran avast. I’ve restarted 5 times today.
It’s really pissing me off because it’s throwing soft port ads at me—picture ads, stuff I do not want to see, and sure don’t want my kids seeing.

Got the answers I needed from Carbonite, and tomorrow I’m just gonna throw out my operating system and start over!

Go with @zenvelo
Let a skilled tech do it.

@Josie ~ I’ve done it before, albeit by accident. I can only think of one thing that I lost forever. The rest I was able to rebuild. I’m prepared this time. It’ll be a whole lot faster, easier, and cheaper than hauling my stuff in.

Wait…I’m going to try a restore…

I’l go with @zenvelo.

And next time be wary of those strange update notifications. And don’t install the Optimizer Pro, it’s a scam. As for the McAfee, they seem to require you to pay to do the cleaning. They never seems to clean anything normally.

Shit. Tried to restore to 11/01, got a “catastrophic error.” Haven’t seen one of those in forever.

I already said I wasn’t going to use Optimizer pro or McAfee. I just mentioned them to see if anyone recommended them.

I watched the AVAST anti-virus program off and on while it worked. Couldn’t help but notice that two infected files were from recipes I’d downloaded, like, months ago.

I would go with Zenvelo, but I can do this.

Thank you @zenvelo.

Whoa..the virus is suddenly not manifesting itself, except in the fact that Questions/Messages/New activity are bolded. I haven’t done anything….

http://xkcd.com/1180/