Edit: Folks, I keep telling you it’s VERY unlikely to be malware.

I’ll update you and apologize to each if my credit card gets wiped or something but I’m quite sure I’m safe, don’t worry.

Also sorry for blaming Microsoft for what is apparently my fault.


I accidentally clicked Microsoft Edge on my work computer with Windows 10 and couldn’t close it — it just keeps reopening. It takes File Shredder to stop it from opening again, at least until the computer restarts.

Notice the ads, most are extremely sketchy (my frequent reload in previous takes caused the ad server + my work VPN to rate limit me):

  • China warns: %user.currency% is dead! (Yeah, sure. Obvious propaganda. Generic pictures or faked images of a worthless banknote giveaway.)
  • 63-year-old figured out! (Does not say what but a pic of obviously young-looking feet.)
  • Make boatloads of money with AI! (aka auto-trade very uncompetitive options, no guarantees on withdrawals of any wins)
  • Save money using solar! (The company is legitimate but the deal on panels is probably not great)
  • Buy yourself a great new FPCEILPTBSP! (You can’t tell what it is and neither can we! (Apparently TV wall mount))
  • Losing hair?
  • Millionaire has genius method you can try (but give us money first, making his pic transparent so we can put him in front of %user.country.flag% was difficult)
  • Game! Yay! (Microtransactions galore!)
  • Get EVERYTHING in your car fixed (by a stock photo mechanic!)
  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    world-renowned, enterprise-level antivirus software running

    lol. better just use defender next time.

    edit: or not use windows.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      -141 year ago

      Yes, I use Linux on my personal machines, and I’m not advocating for Windows (in case you haven’t noticed). I can also assure you, the AV has better hit rate and user rating than Defender.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          -101 year ago

          Infected by Microsoft.

          Basically no modern malware will ever do this, lol. Every black hat just wants to make money by pushing ads, holding data ransom or stealing passwords, as stealthily as possible. Users are already suffficiently anmoyed by corpos, freeware software vendors and other users sharing the same network, the era of purely mildly annoying malware ended in the 2000s. There is no executable I haven’t checked with VirusTotal, and most are FOSS. Firefox once did something similar on me (infinite blank tabs) but it turned out I had misconfigured it to try to call itself to open PDFs.

          • u/unhappy_grapefruit_2
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            1 year ago

            This isn’t a Microsoft issue this is a you issue some might say a skill issue

          • @[email protected]
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            41 year ago

            Microsoft didn’t create your issue, you did by trying to delete an essential part of the OS. Try deleting essential files in Linux and see how well that goes!

            I guess you would blame Microsoft too.

            • @[email protected]OP
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              -31 year ago

              Joke’s on me, I already have (accidentally 😅) deleted essential Linux files before. Fun times. I knew I was to blame though, it was a learning experience.

              Maybe I’ll try to figure out what exactly I did wrong so I learn more than just “don’t poke” (which I wouldn’t stop doing anyway).

      • u/unhappy_grapefruit_2
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        1 year ago

        Edge doesn’t react this way m8. No chromium browser behaves this way doesn’t matter how sketchy a browser is it wouldnt shower you with pop ups and forcefully stay open. Uninstall all your cookies don’t sign into any new accounts erase windows from your hard drive scorched earth style and reinstall windows 10 then change all your account passwords espescally important stuff with your bank details on it

        Just think about it this way even experts can mess up time to time nothing wrong to admit you messed up. If anything it’s a good thing You can learn from this

        • @[email protected]OP
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          -21 year ago

          I’ve had a similar thing happen before, Firefox kept opening several blank tabs every second. That time, the cause was a little more obvious: it kept calling itself to open a PDF because I had misconfigured it. I suspect a similar thing happened here – I did try to remove Edge, which may have broken something.

          Rather than reinstall and reconfigure everything, which takes 4 hours I’ll just do an ESET virus scan and reset some relevant config. I don’t do personal stuff or banking on that computer anyway so I don’t think I’m really in danger.

          • u/unhappy_grapefruit_2
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            31 year ago

            Whatever works for you although if I was put in a smiliar scenario it’s better to be safe than to be sorry

            • @[email protected]OP
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              -11 year ago

              Thanks, finally someome who understands (I don’t mind that you disagree, lots of people IRL do)