What it takes to close Microsoft Edge (⏩ 2x)
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I accidentally clicked Microsoft Edge on my work computer with Windows 10 and can'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 the %user.nationality% flag was difficult), Game! Yay! (Microtransactions galore!), Get EVERYTHING in your car fixed!

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]English
    25•1 year ago

    This is textbook browser takeover activity. Is your enterprise level world renown AV setup correctly?

    Who is it by the way. Just curious

    Edit: by the way the freeware tool you downloaded to remove edge which “didn’t work” sounds like it did work and it took over your browser.

    • @[email protected]English
      14•1 year ago

      Ding ding ding! OP drank the Kool Aid and felt like they needed to completely remove Edge, they downloaded a tool made to bait gullible users and they’re now stuck with a malware and won’t admit it.

      The question OP needs to ask themselves is, why ask for opinions when they will ignore all of them?

      • @[email protected]OPEnglish
        -4•1 year ago

        Nope, the tool is FOSS MSEdgeRedirect, very well known and praised. I think it’s purely my config mistake with no third-party wrongdoing and I will live with the consequence of Edge being slightly more annoying whenever I accidentally click it.

        • u/unhappy_grapefruit_2English
          3•1 year ago

          Did you a: make sure to verify the code before running it on your computer making double sure theres no suspicious code in your text editor of choice or did you just do : b run the file on your computer and give it unfeathered access to your computer I’m assuming you did b because this is what i and most people even a good chunk of linux users would do in this scenario even then I at least make sure to scan doublely suspious files in my AV of choice before actually running it on my system

          • @[email protected]OPEnglish
            -1•1 year ago

            B, of course, I don’t want every install to take 4 hours.

            For antivirus, the company provides ESET but I also use VirusTotal and a WIP common sense engine.

        • Carighan MaconarEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          In a way what you do proves vendors like MS or Apple right in doing what they do, btw. They lock systems down to prevent average users from fucking up their systems with stuff they download from the internet.

          Forcing a specific browser (see Apple just enforcing it all be safari) to prevent the user getting around security checks you can build relying on that one browser is just one step of that.

          And every time someone blindly shoots themselves in the foot with a tool then tries to blame the company for what they themselves did wrong, the number used in meetings to justify more programmer time spent on locking it all down goes up by 1.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      -2•1 year ago

      Well, my default browser is Firefox and EdgeRemover (oops, misremembered the name) MSEdgeRedirect (which is FOSS of course, would not install such thing otherwise) does work, in a way – all Help pages, Start Menu searches etc. get redirected to Firefox and DuckDuckGo. I thought it would prevent Edge from opening at all. I don’t think it’s a browser hijacker.

      Okay, the company is using ESET’s highest tier and the computers are remotely managed so I’m not sure I would see detection notifications.

      textbook browser hijacker

      Is your textbook from the 1990s? Pretty sure modern malware is way more stealthy and not at all obvious.

      Screenshot of famous DOS virus Walker