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Topic:	Xupiter.......... heard of it?

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Your Reply: HTML is OFF UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend	[QUOTE]Originally posted by harry: [B]It's the most evil thing on the Internet, according to some of its victims. But it's not a virus, a scam or a raunchy porn site. It's a browser toolbar that some swear is doing "drive-by downloads" -- installing itself without users' permission -- then taking over their systems and making it impossible to uninstall. "When I find the people who programmed this thing I'd be happy to castrate them with a pair of dull pinking shears," fumed one of Xupiter's many unhappy victims in a newsgroup posting. Xupiter is an Internet Explorer toolbar program. Once active in a system, it periodically changes users' designated homepages to xupiter.com, redirects all searches to Xupiter's site, and blocks any attempts to restore the original browser settings. The program attempts to download updates each time an affected computer boots up, and has been blamed for causing system crashes. Several versions of Xupiter also appear to download other programs, such as gambling games, which later appear in pop-up windows. Some said that Xupiter has taken over their browsers. "Random words and characters now appear when I attempt to enter info on search sites or other forms. It's as if there's a ghost in my machine," New York resident Beth Vanesky said. Xupiter.com is registered to a company called Tempo Internet, in Gyongyos, Hungary. Calls and e-mails to Tempo were not returned. Xupiter offers an uninstall utility, but many said that it didn't work, and in some cases made things worse. "I ran the Xupiter Uninstall, and now every time I try to launch Explorer I get error messages saying 'Xupiter is not installed properly, please reinstall,'" said Manny Abrams of Chicago. Xupiter has spawned long message threads on some tech support sites, as users wrestle to reclaim their machines from the terrible toolbar. "When Xupiter first appeared, we spent a week trying to figure it out," said Mike Healan, of SpywareInfo. "There's a monstrous thread with over 26,000 page views where a couple dozen of us tested it until we figured what it did and how to deal with it." But Healan said that every time people sort out what Xupiter is doing, Xupiter's programmers tweak its code. It also appears that Xupiter may be selling its "service" to other websites. "About once every month or two this software starts hijacking people to a new site," Healan said. "And every time a new version comes out, it adds a different startup entry, uses a different method to change the search function and is basically a bigger pain to remove." Xupiter's site claims the toolbar isn't installed without express permission, but many insisted that they had not agreed to install the program. "Xupiter is the worst thing I've ever personally encountered on the Internet," said Ed Olexa. "You only realize that is has been installed when you start your browser and see that Xupiter's search page is now your homepage." Olexa had to manually edit his system registry to remove Xupiter. "Xupiter seems to have the ability to reinstall itself if each and every component is not removed," Olexa said. "Computer novices might never really get rid of it." Healan recommended Spybot Search & Destroy to eradicate the program. Healan said some installations probably occurred when people clicked "OK" in a pop-up box without really knowing what they had agreed to, or when they meant to close the pop-up window. Xupiter is also being bundled along with at least one peer-to-peer file sharing program. And the toolbar will install itself automatically when Internet Explorer's security settings aren't set to the highest level. [/B][/QUOTE]
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<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="80%"><TR><td bgcolor="#a8a8a8"><TABLE BORDER=0 cellpadding=4 border=0 cellspacing=1 WIDTH="100%"><TR bgcolor="009933"><TD COLSPAN=2><CENTER>T O P I C     R E V I E W</CENTER></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#dedfdf"><TD valign=top>harry</TD><TD>It's the most evil thing on the Internet, according to some of its victims. But it's not a virus, a scam or a raunchy porn site.It's a browser toolbar that some swear is doing "drive-by downloads" -- installing itself without users' permission -- then taking over their systems and making it impossible to uninstall."When I find the people who programmed this thing I'd be happy to castrate them with a pair of dull pinking shears," fumed one of Xupiter's many unhappy victims in a newsgroup posting.Xupiter is an Internet Explorer toolbar program. Once active in a system, it periodically changes users' designated homepages to xupiter.com, redirects all searches to Xupiter's site, and blocks any attempts to restore the original browser settings.The program attempts to download updates each time an affected computer boots up, and has been blamed for causing system crashes. Several versions of Xupiter also appear to download other programs, such as gambling games, which later appear in pop-up windows.Some said that Xupiter has taken over their browsers."Random words and characters now appear when I attempt to enter info on search sites or other forms. It's as if there's a ghost in my machine," New York resident Beth Vanesky said.Xupiter.com is registered to a company called Tempo Internet, in Gyongyos, Hungary. Calls and e-mails to Tempo were not returned.Xupiter offers an uninstall utility, but many said that it didn't work, and in some cases made things worse."I ran the Xupiter Uninstall, and now every time I try to launch Explorer I get error messages saying 'Xupiter is not installed properly, please reinstall,'" said Manny Abrams of Chicago.Xupiter has spawned long message threads on some tech support sites, as users wrestle to reclaim their machines from the terrible toolbar."When Xupiter first appeared, we spent a week trying to figure it out," said Mike Healan, of SpywareInfo. "There's a monstrous thread with over 26,000 page views where a couple dozen of us tested it until we figured what it did and how to deal with it."But Healan said that every time people sort out what Xupiter is doing, Xupiter's programmers tweak its code. It also appears that Xupiter may be selling its "service" to other websites."About once every month or two this software starts hijacking people to a new site," Healan said. "And every time a new version comes out, it adds a different startup entry, uses a different method to change the search function and is basically a bigger pain to remove."Xupiter's site claims the toolbar isn't installed without express permission, but many insisted that they had not agreed to install the program."Xupiter is the worst thing I've ever personally encountered on the Internet," said Ed Olexa. "You only realize that is has been installed when you start your browser and see that Xupiter's search page is now your homepage."Olexa had to manually edit his system registry to remove Xupiter."Xupiter seems to have the ability to reinstall itself if each and every component is not removed," Olexa said. "Computer novices might never really get rid of it."Healan recommended Spybot Search & Destroy to eradicate the program.Healan said some installations probably occurred when people clicked "OK" in a pop-up box without really knowing what they had agreed to, or when they meant to close the pop-up window.Xupiter is also being bundled along with at least one peer-to-peer file sharing program. And the toolbar will install itself automatically when Internet Explorer's security settings aren't set to the highest level. ------------------ Hi Chucky!!!!--Edited, stars.[This message has been edited by GrimReaper (edited 31-01-2003).]</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#f7f7f7"><TD valign=top>Katt</TD><TD>Eh, it may not be a virus per say but it sounds like a virus anyway.....Thanks for the heads up Harry, gonna keep my eyes open. <IMG SRC="http://forums.goconnect.net/ubb/smile.gif"></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#dedfdf"><TD valign=top>Fummie</TD><TD>Welcome Harry, and thanks for the info on Xupiter, I went a done a read on it and came across this, it's on how to remove it, looks like it might be better to re-format. <IMG SRC="http://forums.goconnect.net/ubb/biggrin.gif">Open the registry (from the Start menu, click Run and enter regedit) and find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. Delete the 'XupiterStartup' entry in the Right Hand pane.Also delete the following Registry Keys:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Xupiter HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Code Store Database\Distribution Units\{A27CFCAE-9351-4D74-BFFC-21EB19693D8C}Reboot, and delete the entire Program Files\Xupiter directory. You're also likely to have a Xupiter ActiveX object in your Downloaded Program Files folder. Find that one, rightclick it, and choose properties. It has the following ID: {A27CFCAE-9351-4D74-BFFC-21EB19693D8C} Now rightclick the file, and choose delete. Next, delete the Xupiter folder in Program Files. Finally, go to Internet Options/Programs, and hit "Reset Web Settings". </TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#f7f7f7"><TD valign=top>bigfrog</TD><TD>Be wary of *any* toolbar.There's only one good one that I know of, its the Google toolbar. I've read about a few other useful ones but not tried them.95% of the rest are spyware, or worse, the browser hijackers like Xupiter. Tread wearily! </TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#dedfdf"><TD valign=top>Moby</TD><TD>Alternatively, use a non-M$ browser.<A HREF="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/phoenix-release-notes.html" TARGET=_blank>Phoenix</A> is a perfectly good Mozilla based browser. </TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#f7f7f7"><TD valign=top>Johnny C</TD><TD>Opera seems to see everything that IE can see, and Netscape Communicator sees almost everything.Neither one is subject to the frequent attacks from script kiddies and the like.here's the secret: Don't use Microsoft anything, if you can manage it.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#dedfdf"><TD valign=top>Whiztler</TD><TD>Xupiter is bad news, but so are a hell of a lot of other things that people download and run all of the time.SpybotS&D is quite good at killing all sorts of problem software, and also shows up alot of privacy issues in fairly mainstream software as well.<URL>http://security.kolla.de/</URL> </TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#f7f7f7"><TD valign=top>GrimReaper</TD><TD>Hello Stranger.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#dedfdf"><TD valign=top>benny200</TD><TD>"I'd be happy to castrate them with a pair of dull pinking shears," fumed one of Xupiter's " Assuming this person is a male!.Got to watch our pollie correctness ya know.Don't want to offend our gender defenders do we. <IMG SRC="http://forums.goconnect.net/ubb/biggrin.gif"></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#f7f7f7"><TD valign=top>raymac</TD><TD>The name Xupiter reminds me of Xearth which is very popular and everyone should have.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#dedfdf"><TD valign=top>mellamoandy</TD><TD>maybe you cvan run a program like spybot Search and Destry to eliminate the spyware components and then do an uninstall from add/remove..Just a theory never delt with Xujiter</TD></TR></TABLE></td></tr></table>