Monday, July 15, 2013

Software things NOT to do: Delta Search

Some days, I am dumber than two sacks of hammers.  Today being one of those days.  Being a sucker for freeware I clicked on something I shouldn't have ought to clicked on.  Downloaded it and installed it to see what it did.  It was a PDF manager or some useless thing.

Actually I was trying to download a PDF file from a site that said I needed this first.  I trust everybody and when Winnie Mandela emails or Skypes me to help her get $47 million safely out of South Africa I am going to help her.

The program didn't amount to anything so I quickly uninstalled it but when I went to Google Chrome I found myself taken over by Delta Search which had been packaged with it.  I am too quick on the "next" button and don't read the fine print in the software licence agreement.  Or even read it at all. The Software Licence Agreement and The Bible have in common that people really don't read it, they just scroll to the bottom and click "I accept".

Delta Search is a phoney search engine that brings up fake results, directing you to websites you do not wish to visit so they can sell you something you do not wish to buy.  I went to Google Desktop (yes, I still use it) and used it to search the internet.

Learned a few more things there too.  

Do all the usual on Chrome first:

  • Go to Customize and Control, 
  • First, Tools, Extensions and remove anything that looks like Delta search - it may have other names.
  • Then Settings, On Startup Open specific pages - open and delete Delta anything
  • Also on Settings, Appearance Show Home Button change - delete anything Delta
  • Also on Settings, Search - reset default then open Manage Search Engines and delete anything that looks like Delta.
  • Close and reopen Chrome.  You MAY have solved your problem...or not.

If not:
Download adwcleaner and run it (Search then Delete), then run Malware Bytes Anti-Malware which you can get for free and should have on your computer anyhow. I have the Pro version which costs but has saved me many times.

That should solve your problem BUT be careful.  If you Google "uninstall Delta Search", some of the sites that will come up are also fakes and while they will tell you the above they will then suggest downloading and running something like SpyHunter or SpyWare Doctor which will "identify" all sorts of stuff on your computer and make you buy it to get rid of it.  I read several different pages of instructions before I did anything and lucked out because two of the first links I opened were fakes promoting the two Spy programs.


2 comments:

  1. A little knowledge can get you in trouble. Stay ignorant my friend: what he hell is PDF?

    the Ol'Buzzard

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Portable document format. Greatest thing since sliced bread. Virtually all documents you pull off the web are in PDF format. Much better than Word as they keep their formatting, can't be messed with easily and are smaller in file size. If I had your email address, I would send you our Christmas letter as an example. Then you download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free and you are away to the races.

      Delete

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