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R. H. Breener[_2_] September 1st 14 10:03 AM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 
For the last hour IE and Mozilla Firefox have become unusable. Almost every
website bring up an Expired Certificate window and wont let the pages load.
They all say This Page Is Untrusted. So neither can be updated. So far I've
run Spybot, Malwarebytes, Windows defender and JRT - nothing was found in
the way of adware, viruses, nothing. What could be causing this with both
browsers?



---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com


David H. Lipman September 1st 14 01:41 PM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 
From: "R. H. Breener"

For the last hour IE and Mozilla Firefox have become unusable. Almost
every website bring up an Expired Certificate window and wont let the
pages load. They all say This Page Is Untrusted. So neither can be
updated. So far I've run Spybot, Malwarebytes, Windows defender and JRT -
nothing was found in the way of adware, viruses, nothing. What could be
causing this with both browsers?


Please check your PC clock date and time.

Additionally, please disable the Avast post appending function.



--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp


VanguardLH[_2_] September 1st 14 07:07 PM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 
R. H. Breener wrote:

For the last hour IE and Mozilla Firefox have become unusable. Almost
every website bring up an Expired Certificate window and wont let the
pages load.


Those would be https web sites (that use SSL to encrypt the connection)
since http sites don't use or need site certs.

They all say This Page Is Untrusted. So neither can be updated.


Are you running anything that intercepts and perhaps interrogates your
web traffic? You're running Avast but are you running anything else?
For example, I have Applian's Replay Media Capture (RMC) and configured
it to intercept HTTPS traffic (the default setting) so I can capture
streaming video from HTTPS sources. When this is running, sometimes I
get cert errors. I'd get errors from my e-mail client (Thunderbird)
about not being able to connect using SSL to the e-mail servers. When I
used to have EMET running, it would complain all the time about cert
errors for HTTPS sites when RMC was running.

From your bogus signature below, you are using Avast. Have you tried
temporarily disabling it to see if its interception and interrogation of
your web traffic is the culprit? Do you have a 3rd party firewall
installed? If so, have you tried disabling it? What other active
security software do you have running on your computer?

Have you yet rebooted Windows? If there are pending Windows updates,
they can interfere with the operation of the OS or applications. You
didn't mention if you configured Windows Update to merely notify you of
new updates or if you left Windows configured with the default WU
setting of download and installing the updates. You could reconfigure
WU to only notify you of new updates and then download and apply them
when you are prepared, like after saving a backup image of the OS
partition. WU creates a restore point so you don't have to bother doing
that but restore points won't take you back to the exact state of the OS
partition, so save a backup image before applying updates to the OS.
Even if WU doesn't say you need to reboot after applying some updates,
do it anyway. Sometimes apps or services get in some weird state, and
I've seen hardware that won't reset properly via software but requires a
reboot. So see if a reboot of Windows fixes the problem.

If a reboot doesn't kick the problem in the butt to fix it, use msconfig
to disable all startup programs and reboot. That will eliminate a
startup program as the cause of the interferrence. If the problem goes
away, reenable each startup program one at a time, reboot, and retest.
When the problem returns, it was the last reenabled startup program that
is the culprit. And if that doesn't work then reboot Windows in its own
safe mode (but with networking enabled) to eliminate all startup
programs along with non-critical services to retest.

As a test, disable hardware (GPU) acceleration in Internet Explorer.
Too often using the GPU results in improper behavior or crashes (from
which IE may try to recover but IE is still in a limbo state). Internet
Options - Advanced, enable software rendering (to disable hardware/GPU
rendering). The AMD/ATI drivers don't seem to do well with apps that
want to use hardware acceleration (which is only important in you play
online video/action games). I've had to disable hardware acceleration
in IE and other apps to keep them from crashing; else, after a crash, I
will trace it back to an ati* file (so the video driver or its
ancilliary files caused the crash). If the problem goes away in IE
after disabling hardware acceleration, do the same for Firefox. They
all want it enabled primarily to improve their benchmarks. This is an
iffy solution as I wouldn't expect hardware acceleration to affect
connectivity of HTTP over SSL (HTTPS) but if IE is crashing and
recovering than the recovered state may not be a usable state.

Have you yet tried loading the web browsers in their safe mode to
eliminate add-ons as a possible source of your problem? Although you
are asking about two different web browsers, you might've installed an
add-on from the same source into both of them (e.g., Adblock Plus). For
Internet Explorer, run iexplore.exe with the -extoff command-line
argument (run without extensions). I forget how to run Firefox in safe
mode but an online search would find that pretty easily.

While I don't know if such an add-on exists for IE, there is one for
Firefox that tries to always connect to a web site using SSL (HTTPS).
If it fails that connect then it degrades to an non-SSL connect (HTTP).
The idea is this add-on tries to up your security by trying to use an
encrypted connection to the site whenever possible. However, SSL
resources at a web server are more "expensive" than non-SSL connects so
it is a bit rude to use SSL when it isn't needed to use a web site just
because you're scared something is sniffing your packets. If you have
such an add-on, it would be disabled for the above recommendation of
starting the web browsers in their safe mode.

---


Not a valid signature delimiter line (which is "-- \n", or dash dash
space newline). So everything after the fake delimiter is in the body
of your post.

This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus
protection is active.
h**p:// www. avast. c*m


Avast, by default, will spamify your posts (and e-mails) by appending
their promotional fake signature block. Either configure Avast to not
append their spam to your post (which makes spam your post) or get rid
of the superfluous e-mail/post scanner module (it adds no further
protection over the on-access/real-time scanner).

R. H. Breener[_2_] September 1st 14 08:13 PM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 

"David H. Lipman" wrote in message
...
From: "R. H. Breener"

For the last hour IE and Mozilla Firefox have become unusable. Almost
every website bring up an Expired Certificate window and wont let the
pages load. They all say This Page Is Untrusted. So neither can be
updated. So far I've run Spybot, Malwarebytes, Windows defender and
JRT - nothing was found in the way of adware, viruses, nothing. What
could be causing this with both browsers?


Please check your PC clock date and time.

Additionally, please disable the Avast post appending function.


That was only one problem solved. Thanks. The computer (not this one) is
infected with something called Optimun PC Boost. The uninstall guide I found
online didn't help since the keys in the registry didn't exist to be
removed. AVG found it on a deep scan but can't remove it. It returns on
reboot.
Suggestions?





--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp



R. H. Breener[_2_] September 1st 14 08:41 PM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 

"VanguardLH" wrote in message
...
R. H. Breener wrote:

For the last hour IE and Mozilla Firefox have become unusable. Almost
every website bring up an Expired Certificate window and wont let the
pages load.


Those would be https web sites (that use SSL to encrypt the connection)
since http sites don't use or need site certs.

They all say This Page Is Untrusted. So neither can be updated.


Are you running anything that intercepts and perhaps interrogates your
web traffic? You're running Avast but are you running anything else?
For example, I have Applian's Replay Media Capture (RMC) and configured
it to intercept HTTPS traffic (the default setting) so I can capture
streaming video from HTTPS sources. When this is running, sometimes I
get cert errors. I'd get errors from my e-mail client (Thunderbird)
about not being able to connect using SSL to the e-mail servers. When I
used to have EMET running, it would complain all the time about cert
errors for HTTPS sites when RMC was running.


No, nothing like that. I ran a deep scan with AVG and it found Optimum PC
Boost. As mentioned in reply to Mr Lipman, it comes back on reboot. When I
get back home later I'll do some Googling to see what I can find to remove
it since the keys mentioned on a page I found don't exist in the registry so
can't be removed. Right now I'm doing a System Restore and see if that
helps. The havoc this virus is causing on that computer is almost total.


From your bogus signature below, you are using Avast. Have you tried
temporarily disabling it to see if its interception and interrogation of
your web traffic is the culprit? Do you have a 3rd party firewall
installed? If so, have you tried disabling it? What other active
security software do you have running on your computer?


This isn't the computer infected - having problems. No other active
security sw runs on the Vista that I know of. It's a backup PC more than
anything else. No 3rd party firewalls. Just the one W comes with.


Have you yet rebooted Windows? If there are pending Windows updates,
they can interfere with the operation of the OS or applications. You
didn't mention if you configured Windows Update to merely notify you of
new updates or if you left Windows configured with the default WU
setting of download and installing the updates. You could reconfigure
WU to only notify you of new updates and then download and apply them
when you are prepared, like after saving a backup image of the OS
partition. WU creates a restore point so you don't have to bother doing
that but restore points won't take you back to the exact state of the OS
partition, so save a backup image before applying updates to the OS.
Even if WU doesn't say you need to reboot after applying some updates,
do it anyway. Sometimes apps or services get in some weird state, and
I've seen hardware that won't reset properly via software but requires a
reboot. So see if a reboot of Windows fixes the problem.


Yeah, seen that happen before. It notifies and I always reboot after
updates. It just did a Systen Restore and it coundn't restart. The Startup
Repair is running in Safe Mode as I type this.


If a reboot doesn't kick the problem in the butt to fix it, use msconfig
to disable all startup programs and reboot. That will eliminate a
startup program as the cause of the interferrence. If the problem goes
away, reenable each startup program one at a time, reboot, and retest.
When the problem returns, it was the last reenabled startup program that
is the culprit. And if that doesn't work then reboot Windows in its own
safe mode (but with networking enabled) to eliminate all startup
programs along with non-critical services to retest.


The only thing I can disable on Vista is the anti-virus sw. I run them lean
and mean.


As a test, disable hardware (GPU) acceleration in Internet Explorer.
Too often using the GPU results in improper behavior or crashes (from
which IE may try to recover but IE is still in a limbo state). Internet
Options - Advanced, enable software rendering (to disable hardware/GPU
rendering). The AMD/ATI drivers don't seem to do well with apps that
want to use hardware acceleration (which is only important in you play
online video/action games). I've had to disable hardware acceleration
in IE and other apps to keep them from crashing; else, after a crash, I
will trace it back to an ati* file (so the video driver or its
ancilliary files caused the crash). If the problem goes away in IE
after disabling hardware acceleration, do the same for Firefox. They
all want it enabled primarily to improve their benchmarks. This is an
iffy solution as I wouldn't expect hardware acceleration to affect
connectivity of HTTP over SSL (HTTPS) but if IE is crashing and
recovering than the recovered state may not be a usable state.


I'll do that later today if it boots up after this System Restore. Will let
you know what happens.


Have you yet tried loading the web browsers in their safe mode to
eliminate add-ons as a possible source of your problem? Although you
are asking about two different web browsers, you might've installed an
add-on from the same source into both of them (e.g., Adblock Plus). For
Internet Explorer, run iexplore.exe with the -extoff command-line
argument (run without extensions). I forget how to run Firefox in safe
mode but an online search would find that pretty easily.


It's worth looking into. There should be no add-ons in IE. FF had ABP to
block popups. And the Save Session add-on. When I tried to update FF it
crashed, burned and was never seen again. I uninstalled whatever was left
of it. This has to be this virus to so such damage. I'm considering trying
a System Recovery. Drastic but may be necessary.


While I don't know if such an add-on exists for IE, there is one for
Firefox that tries to always connect to a web site using SSL (HTTPS).
If it fails that connect then it degrades to an non-SSL connect (HTTP).
The idea is this add-on tries to up your security by trying to use an
encrypted connection to the site whenever possible. However, SSL
resources at a web server are more "expensive" than non-SSL connects so
it is a bit rude to use SSL when it isn't needed to use a web site just
because you're scared something is sniffing your packets. If you have
such an add-on, it would be disabled for the above recommendation of
starting the web browsers in their safe mode.


Let them sniff - nothing to hide here. What would be the benefit of
starting them in Safe Mode? I did remove Adblock Plus and Save Session and
it made no difference before FF was trashed. The Vista had problems on and
off for awhile. I may do a System Recovery, drastic as it is, and if the
problems continue just trash the machine.


---


Not a valid signature delimiter line (which is "-- \n", or dash dash
space newline). So everything after the fake delimiter is in the body
of your post.

This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus
protection is active.
h**p:// www. avast. c*m


Avast, by default, will spamify your posts (and e-mails) by appending
their promotional fake signature block. Either configure Avast to not
append their spam to your post (which makes spam your post) or get rid
of the superfluous e-mail/post scanner module (it adds no further
protection over the on-access/real-time scanner).



VanguardLH[_2_] September 1st 14 09:36 PM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 
R. H. Breener wrote:

I ran a deep scan with AVG and it found Optimum PC Boost. As mentioned
in reply to Mr Lipman, it comes back on reboot.


Gotta watch those installers screens more closely from now on and always
elect a custom install to deselect the foistware.

http://malwaretips.com/blogs/optimum...ost-uninstall/

However, I would change the order to run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware
(after first attempting the normal uninstall) before using the other
cleanup tools.

What would be the benefit of starting them in Safe Mode?


Not all add-ons may be listed in the web browser's UI. First, make sure
you elect to see ALL add-ons, not just those currently loaded. Second,
some add-ons are COM plug-ins and you won't see them listed in the
add-ons listed by IE. Loading the web browser prevents loading of all
add-ons and COM plug-ins. Try that to see if it's just something within
IE causing the connect problems or something external that blocks the
HTTPS connections.

For example, I used to use PDFxchange PDFviewer with the option to
integrate it into the web browser. I'm running Windows 7 x64 so the
64-bit version of IE gets loaded. That add-on did NOT show up in IE's
programs list but it still worked okay. So I could not disable it from
within IE's UI and would have to load IE in its safe mode to ensure it
was NOT loaded along with IE. Back when I used IE6/7/8 and installed
the PopupCop add-on (discontinued in 2009) by Edensoft (dead in 2011),
it wasn't in IE's list of add-ons. Besides a much better popup manager
than what was in IE, it let the user decide on default privileges for
sites unless allowed more/less privileges in white/blacklists, along
with many other handy features, like telling me to where a redirection
pointed for meta-refresh with a button to go there so choose if I wanted
a page to take me elsewhere. It never appeared in IE's list of add-ons.
I mentioned this to the author and he updated his COM plug-in so it
would show up. So he had to do something, like register the add-on, for
IE to show PopupCop on its list of add-ons.

So start the web browser in its safe mode to make sure ALL add-ons are
disabled, not just the ones that IE will show you.

David H. Lipman September 1st 14 11:57 PM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 
From: "R. H. Breener"


helps. The havoc this virus is causing on that computer is almost total.


Optimun PC Boost is NOT a virus. It does not self replicate nor does it
spread autonomously.


--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp


R. H. Breener[_2_] September 13th 14 12:04 AM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 

"VanguardLH" wrote in message
...

So start the web browser in its safe mode to make sure ALL add-ons are
disabled, not just the ones that IE will show you.


brevity snip

Thanks for that info.

I thought I'd let you know when I tried a System Restore which failed, I
then tried a System Recovery. When I clicked to do a System Recovery the
computer failed completely. It kept telling me the disks for the Vista PC
were not authenticated (or some such) for that system. How can that be when
they came from HP and the second set were made from THAT HP computer itself?
It wouldn't go into safe mode. It said no disks could be found. The boot
disk didn't work either with an error it wasn't authenticated for that
system. WTF? The PC is sitting here totally worthless and was hardly used.
How the hell do I get it to recognize the Recovery disks or the boot disk?


R. H. Breener[_2_] September 13th 14 12:05 AM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 

"David H. Lipman" wrote in message
...
From: "R. H. Breener"


helps. The havoc this virus is causing on that computer is almost total.


Optimun PC Boost is NOT a virus. It does not self replicate nor does it
spread autonomously.


Please see my reply to VanguardLH above.



--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp



David H. Lipman September 13th 14 12:33 AM

Expired cirtificate errors FireFox and IE (Vista 32 bit)
 
From: "R. H. Breener"


"VanguardLH" wrote in message
...

So start the web browser in its safe mode to make sure ALL add-ons are
disabled, not just the ones that IE will show you.


brevity snip

Thanks for that info.

I thought I'd let you know when I tried a System Restore which failed, I
then tried a System Recovery. When I clicked to do a System Recovery the
computer failed completely. It kept telling me the disks for the Vista PC
were not authenticated (or some such) for that system. How can that be
when they came from HP and the second set were made from THAT HP computer
itself? It wouldn't go into safe mode. It said no disks could be found.
The boot disk didn't work either with an error it wasn't authenticated for
that system. WTF? The PC is sitting here totally worthless and was hardly
used. How the hell do I get it to recognize the Recovery disks or the
boot disk?


What was the OS and flavour ?

--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp



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