My cousin came over today with some laptop computer problems. One of them was a somewhat malware program that always came up when she turned the computer on and opened the Edge browser automatically.
I searched out various online fixes, and the ones you could do yourself on Edge didn't work because you couldn't get to the needed Advanced Settings section. Finally they directed you to buy their malware removal tool. Heh.
First I'll tell you what I did and then the steps that led to that. I hate to read "how to" lessons which lead you through a long introduction.
1. Open your control panel
a. click on the magnifying glass search symbol next to your windows key at the bottom left of your computer screen and type "Control Panel" in the search box
b. Click on Control Panel app at the top left of the screen
2. Click on Programs - uninstall a program
3. Click on Programs and Features
4. Find Obituary Search in the list of programs
5. Uninstall it
It's not as malevolent as many malware programs because it can be easily uninstalled. But it is malevolent in that it changes your browser. You cannot uninstall your browser when it is active and it creates an Edge modification program that also cannot be uninstalled. Further, you can no longer get to the advanced settings section in Edge. So, it does bad things. But, thankfully, those can all be undone by uninstalling the Obituary Search program itself.
Once we uninstalled the program, Edge went back to normal, and Obituary Search did not come up running at computer startup.
By the way, McAfee was useless. I ran a scan on the Obituary Search application file, and it came out fine. I started to install a free McAfee malware tool, but never used it because I saw the Obituary Search program in her downloads list with the same date as the Edge modification program. I looked to see if it was in the installed programs list. It was and was uninstallable. I'm not sure if the McAfee malware program would help or not.
2 comments:
Very great information! I've never had the issue, but then I rarely use Edge. I think you've assisted many frustrated users.
You are my inspiration to put "fixes" online (and OG taught me to make the title concisely descriptive). I've learned so much from your fixes, Max! I rarely use Edge too, but my cousin uses what came with her computer and Windows 10--which is Edge.
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