Removing Linkbucks-whatever from Ubuntu

[barjaktar]

Hello.

I am using a 64 bit Ubuntu 12.04 and up-to-date versions of Firefox and Chromium.

Couple of days ago some webpages went crazy. But, ok, that kind of stuff happens. Neverheless, I am unable to open certain for two days or so. Now I am getting suspicious. When I search something on Google or anywhere else, I get normal results. But when I try to open one of the offered links - Firefox takes me to a blank page. Literally - blank page, just white. Nothing happens, no error messages, just white. Now, yesterday and today it happens even for the big guys - Wikipedia and so.

Last night I started looking for a solution. Then - a new moment. When I would click a link (not all of them, only some) it would take me to some Linkbucks thing and offer me to Download something. If I try to leave, it asks me to Stay on Page and so on. It's really annoying - This morning my deadline on Coursera passed - I couldn't do my assignments the whole week!

Now, I see that this is not an isolated issue, there are many cases, but - almost all of them on Windows... I couldn't find much help for Ubuntu. So I tried what is already said there. Reset the PC, reset Firefox, actual reset of Firefox to default settings, unninstall Firefox, reinstall Firefox, disabled all the extensions, disabled all the plugins, deleted history, cookies and everything else - zip, nada, zero, nothing - it still takes me to Linkbucks... I restarted my network adapter, my network service, deleted all the stuff from /etc/hosts except for localhost - nothing but Linkbucks.

What is said for Firefox - is the same for Chromium.

Please, could you try to help me here. Thank you for your time.

Regards.

[bapoumba]

Please check for any extension that may be present and try making new users on both browsers :
Chromium : https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/142059?hl=en
Firefox : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...refox-profiles

[barjaktar]

Bapoumba, thank you for your time.

I have done so: I have deleted and created a new profile. Also, I have disabled all of the available add-ons and extensions. Unfortunately, the problem persists. Here are several screenshots to paint my situation.

The only new thing I have noticed is that Firefox acts differently when I search via Google and via Bing. When I search on Google, it gives me back results, but when I click on any of them - I get white (as previously described). When I use Bing and click on some of the results - it takes me to some of the pages: say, if the result is a Wikipedia search, or this forum - it will do it; but for others it will giv me Linkbucks; for some (codeskulptor.org) it will give me white - just like with Google.

Please do help me guys if you can, because this is now making me serious problems - it's making me problems on my job.

Thank you very much for your time and effort.

[barjaktar]

Unfortunately, I forgot to attach the screenshots - here they are.

[23dornot23d]

First thing I would do is move the old configuration and settings file out of the way so its
not being used .......... so move .mozilla its in the users directory ~/ .



.mozilla folder out of the way to something like .mozilla-old

cd
mv .mozilla .mozilla-old

Then start Firefox .........

What will happen then is Mozilla will create a fresh one ..........

See if the same things start to happen again ....... but you will be initializing it so history passwords everything will no longer be there
you will have to start over again when loging into things on the web.

Hopefully that will be enough to clear it .......

[bapoumba]

Have you tried removing your startup page ?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2137401

[barjaktar]

Thank you both for your time.

Nevertheless, the problem persists. Yes, I have seen that thread and tried to as listed - changing my webpage did not solve the problem. Also, deleting .mozilla/ did not do the trick. I still have the same issues when trying to use my browser (different for Bing and Google).

Looking forward to your further assitance.

Regards.

[bapoumba]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2212306

Please have a look at your DNS. Looks like this thing redirects your browser queries.

Edit : not for your specific issue, but that is the idea http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...6#post10343326

[barjaktar]

Hello, sorry for the late reply, I wasn't home for a while.

Anyway, my /etc/resolv.conf contains only the following line

nameserver 127.0.0.1

When I checked my network, there was a strange thing about DNS setting. I use a router which goes over to my ISP. I have no idea what the router does when talking to the ISP. My PC used to have DHCP running until now, and it was showing me:
ip: 192.168.0.102
gateway: 192.168.0.1
dns: 192.168.10.1 192.168.0.1

I have no ide what the hell is 192.168.10.1, so I switched to manual IPv4 configuration, thus forcing the DNS to be 192.168.0.1 - the same like gateway, i.e. my router here.

And still - I have everything the same. Google links don't work at all, Bing links sometiems do, sometimes take me to Linkbucks sites...

What else can I do about the DNS?

Thank you for your time and effort.

[bapoumba]

I've been including Windows systems to my searches as I've sort of run out of ideas from searches on Linux.
Couple things :

Search engines :
Chromium > Settings Search > Manage search engines. I have Google, Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuckgo. Please remove any other ones
Firefox > Search engine icon > Manage search engines > Same as above.

Proxy :
Look for any proxy in the browsers and network configuration. Remove it if you are not using a proxy.

Router :
I've seen some posts related to a router infection (). Could you test with another computer ? I've never seen that suggested, but could give it a shot.