Stop Zilla To The Rescue? Maybe Not! How To Remove StopZilla Toolbar

Has your computer been plagued by Stop Zilla or its notorious toolbar? Not able to remove either the software itself or the Stop Zilla toolbar? This post contains the solution! Read on!



BLACK FRIDAY SECURITY TOOL ATTACK

So I was telling you about the Black Friday attack of the "Security Tool". I therefore downloaded and installed Stop Zilla, an alleged malware removal program.

It turns out Stop Zilla itself justifies the adjective "mal" = bad... keep on reading.

I STEP INTO... STOP ZILLA

I installed and ran Stop Zilla. After a few hours it came back with seven potential threats:

1. Agobot.MG, Worm,Critical Severity
2. VX.Game.Temp_044, Trojan, High Severity
3. A Better Internet.Clean Get-Away, Adware, Moderate Severity
4. System Security, Rogue Adware, Moderate Severity
5. PromoReg, Worm, High Severity
6. SystemPolicies.DisableTask, Hijacker, Moderate Severity
7. SystemPolicies.DisableRegistry, Hijacker, Moderate Severity

Didn't look exactly like what I was trying to get rid of (C:\Windows\Temp\_ex-08.exe, see my previous post). Still, I go ahead and hit the Remove Button. When I hit the button Remove to remove the malware found, Stop Zilla wanted money from me (9.95, $30 off of the regular price for the whole year, a Black Friday Special - what a coincidence!? or $79.95 lifetime support). So typical. Everyone is willing to tell you how they found malware on your computer, noone is willing to remove it for free. I'm not surprised, this is how softwares like that make their money. But I decided to uninstall Stop Zilla. Another reason - I just remembered I have a free McAfee download available through my DSL provider AT&T (Thanks Mama Bell).

ON TO REMOVING STOP ZILLA - EASIER SAID THAN DONE

Easier said than done. Stop Zila uninstalls to the degree, and then stops and waits, doing nothing apparently. Waits for 10-20 minutes! Really slow uninstall! I ended up killing all Stop Zila processes and doing the uninstall manually through the Vista system. Job completed? Not really. A nasty surprise awaits...

BUT WAIT - WHAT IS THIS PESKY STOP ZILLA FIREFOX TOOLBAR DOING HERE?

It is impossilble to uninstall the "Stop Zilla Toolbar" bot for the Firefox 3.5.5 and for the Internet Explorer 8! The Stop Zilla simply doesn't clean that "detail" after itself. The Stop Zilla refuses to remove the (useless and disfunctional in my opinion) toolbar. When you go to Firefox Tools, Add-Ons section, Stop Zilla Toolbar is NOWHERE to be found, neither under Plug-ins nor Extensions! So how to remove the toolbar? This annoyance took me a few hours to figure out but I found a solution.

OTHER PEOPLE COMPLAINING TOO

I found a suspiciously similar complaint on this website http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/and-yet-another-security-vendor.html. There is a rebuttal by an officer from Stop Zilla... And now a rebuttal of the rebuttal of yours truly:

And yet another security vendor succumbs to temptation

12/3/2008 Correction/Clarification: This is not technically the Ask Toolbar. It's actually a STOPzilla toolbar that uses Ask search results. More here.

Yet another security vendor succumbs to bundling the Ask Toolbar with their product — and again, pre-selected (and when you go to uninstall the STOPzilla, you’re still left with the Ask Toolbar to uninstall).

This is getting gross.

AND HERE IS THE SOLUTION. IT WORKS FOR ME.

So, long story short, it  is possible to easily remove Stop Zilla Firefox and IE8 toolbars by

• uninstalling Stop Zilla as directed under Stop Zilla/Uninstall Stop Zilla -- you really need to kill all other processes for this to work, or just use the Windows Vista Uninstall Program feature.
  
• going to C:\Program Files\Stopzilla!\ and removing all files from there. The Firefox won't find the extension there, and you won't see it in the Firefox frame anymore. A Big annoyance resolved! As for IE8, even with Stop Zilla installed, you could always disable the SZ toolbar. 

Big toolbar annoyance resolved. Can we please get back to the "original" malware, the one that started this whole story?

[Update: Turns out this was not the last change Stop Zilla instigated and not reversed during uninstall. Find out how to restore google search in your Firefox Navigation Bar, if you notice the default search was changed to Ask...]

MCAFEE NOT DOING MUCH BETTER... TOOK FOREVER JUST TO INSTALL...

Talking about the "Security Tool" malware. Stop Zilla apparently did not take it out but I did delete some files as instructed. Has that been able to take it out? I was only able to run the McAfee "quick" virus scan with the updates. McAfee gave me a lot of grief just installing itself, and I had to install McAfee Virtual Technician too just to get the Virus Scan going. But I digress.....

STOP ZILLA PROBLEM SOLVED FOR ME, MOVING ON TO THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM

Well, at the end of the day, Black Friday, the Security Tool popped up again, this time just the "Red" shield... I'm running McAfee again overnight. The battle of security tools... I'll let it run overnight.. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, my laptop's in trouble!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Did you find the directions above useful for removing Stop Zilla AND its pesky toolbar? Let me know! Just leave a comment below. Or bookmark the page below. If you have questions let me know also!

Remove "Security Tool" "Anti-Malware" Popups

Black Friday: A Day Wasted on "Security Tool" removal.

BLACK FRIDAY, AM

Black Friday, what an appropriate name. Having woken up this morning and for some reason having rebooted my laptop, I find the reboot proces is utterly slow...



"SECURITY TOOL" GREETING

Finally the laptop comes to life, I log on, and a software named "Security Tool" starts popping up, letting me know I have several worms, trojans, and other malware and that I need to download "Security Tool" of sorts ... One Blue and one Red icon appear in the system tray. With popups.

SOMEBODY WANTS ME TO BUY

It really looked more like a hard sale/marketing approach wanting me to go and visit an anti-malware site. Not buying into the suggestions, it gives me the only option to "continue unprotected" just to bug me again in a few minutes. I suddenly felt a strong urge to remove the "Security Tool".

I WANT TO REMOVE "SECURITY TOOL"

A quick search for "remove security tool" yields a site offering a purchase of anti-virus program. Here is the page: 2-viruses.com. The best part was a comment posted there by Philly Keith:

Philly Keith

October 9th, 2009 at 21:04

forget all that… try this move, it worked for me
after going nuts over this for a whole day.

Reboot in safe mode browse to
C:\Documents and settings\all users\ application data

There will be a folder in there that has
eight numbers as a name (ex 91908431)

Delete this bad boy, empty recycle bin

Reboot normally, delete all left over shortcuts,
empty recycle bin again and you are home free.

FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS

Except that these directions look like they're from Win XP, so I found the offending directory in C:\Users\All Users\00854623 and the other place is C:\Program Data\00854623\00854623.exe . I noticed the 00854623.exe was running in the Task Manager. That was suspicious indeed.

ANOTHER BUGGER

So I followed directions but, I also noticed another bugger in the Task Manager/Processes: _ex-08.exe. Searching for this string led me to virusremovalguru.com/?p=3623 where I found advertising for Stopzilla.com. You are beginning to notice how these "helpful" sites always have something in store for you that will cost ya?!

STOPZILLA TO THE RESCUE?

[UPDATE: Please do NOT follow these directions to download StopZilla. If you do, you will have to go to the very next post and learn how to completely remove Stop Zilla and its toolbars. It ain't easy! You've been pre-warned! However, if you have downloaded Stop Zilla already, that post will save you a ton of time]

Long story short, I download StopZilla in hopes it will remove the _ex-08.exe bugger. FYI an independent search using Windows Explorer found two files: C:\Windows\_ex-08.exe-311C6F9.pf and C:\Windows\Temp\_ex-08.exe . I wanted these removed.

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO GET TO THE NEXT STEP IN REMOVING "SECURITY TOOL"

If you installed StopZilla: More on removing "Security Tool" in the next post: Adventures in the StopZilla land.

If you did install StopZilla like me: You need one extra step of removing Stop Zilla here, and then proceed from there.

ARE YOU HAVING FUN YET?

Has the adventure helped you in any way so far? Let me know, leave me a comment!