#yontoo

I’ve been fighting a computer virus for the last few days. I don’t know how I got it, but ‘Yontoo’ has been making my life miserable, slowing net access to a crawl, freezing browser windows, etc. 

There's been some issues with Chrome this morning - tumblr and a whole lot of other websites were being blocked due to a scary looking malware warning.

This is apparently just a bug, and it can be fixed by uninstalling yontoo from your control panel - worked for me!

Some people have been complaining about seeing pop-up ads on their dashboard or on some Tumblr pages.  I started seeing them today on my dash after switching to Chrome earlier this week.  I found Yontoo enabled in Chrome's extensions, disabled it, and uninstalled it.  I haven't seen another ad so far.

Yontoo is adware that by itself usually avoids being labeled as malware, so it won't always be identified by security scans.  It claims to add "layers" to web pages to improve browsing.  Yontoo is the master program that opens the door for applications like yontoo.pagerage and others that turn random words on a page into links to advertisers or cause pop-ups and banners that appear to be from the site you are viewing.

I literally just got done with the rage of all program/virus uninstalls. I was yelling at my laptop, threatening lawsuits with the programs that allowed this (I'm looking at you, Facebook and Yontoo), and contemplating laptop homicide. So now I am going to make this blog in the hopes that I can help other people to uninstall this program.

It all started in the morning. I opened my laptop and started it to take notes for class browse the internet and Facebook is showing me these really awful ads. I mean, they're flashy and distracting and follow me down as I scroll.

To clarify, the Papa John's one is just in my feed. The rest are the ads. And I am getting pissed. I have no idea where these ads are suddenly coming from; Facebook certainly wasn't doing this the night before. I went into my privacy settings and limited ads, I went into account settings and changed my password. Nothing got rid of these ads. Finally, I spotted the perpetrator.

That little icon is for a page called "PageRage" and let me tell you, it certainly lives up to its name. No matter how many times I clicked that "remove layout" or even clicked "change layout," which directed me to the site where I then clicked "remove layout" again, Facebook would simply refresh itself and there these two little links would pop up again.

I went to Google and did a search on how to get rid of this. Some sites suggested going to Firefox's "Add-ons" menu and disabling and removing it from there. But I'm a bit more computer savvy and found different Google results about the company that runs PageRage called "Yontoo." I went into my Programs Uninstall list directly on my computer and lo and behold, what do I find?

There is Yontoo, the little bugger. I don't know what this program is or how it installed itself, or even how it installed itself on that date, but I don't like it. I go to uninstall it, but my computer gives me an angry red X with a message that says something along the lines of, "cannot start uninstall."

At this point, keep in mind that I'm still in class and have basically just discovered that there's a virus on my computer. This has happened to me once before and no notes got taken because I was too worried and consumed with the thought of getting the program off my computer immediately. I'm clenching my jaw trying not to scream in frustration, which I have jaw problems and clenching when I'm stressed only makes it worse.

Class finally ends, though, and I head home. I'm looking up anything I can that might help me uninstall this uninstallable program, whether it's stronger uninstall programs or if I need to just rip the hard drive out and extract the program with my bare hands.

One result finally shined a light down my dark tunnel. A forum mentioned something about going directly into your computer files and looking for a specified list of programs. And I found the mothership program to Yontoo.

HOW TO UNINSTALL YONTOO: I found the mothership files in the C drive in the ProgramData folder. In that folder there was a folder with the name of TARMA Installer (or something similar, I could have forgotten already). What you need to do is hold Ctrl+Shift and right click on the program. There will be a Delete option with the Administrator Shield next to it. It might not let you simply delete the entire folder; it didn't let me delete it, even though I am the only account on my laptop and am automatically the Administrator, until I found the Ctrl+Shift option in searching. This tells the computer that you are the Administrator and you are demanding this command be done immediately.It will delete the folder and from there, you should be able to uninstall Yontoo from your Programs list.