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How to remove urlseek20.vmn.net malware

Author: Petrus Theron | Posted: 28 June 2009 14:12 17

Symptoms

A Yahoo-partnered search is displayed at the URL "urlseek20.vmn.net" when navigating to a non-existent website, which would otherwise deliver a 404 Cannot be found error.

How to remove the "urlseek20.vmn.net" malware

  1. Open Add/Remove Programs by going to Control Panel in Windows (or type 'control' in the Run prompt and press enter).
  2. Uninstall the PDFforge toolbar and/or Search settings listed as applications using Add/Remove Programs.
  3. Well done! Get yourself a victory coffee for delivering your browser from Internet AIDS.

Cause

Installing PDFCreator also installs the PDFforge toolbar, which intentionally misdirects 404 URL navigations in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Thanks to James for posting about similar problems caused by Search settings.

Feedback

When I first published this article out of frustration for bullshit malware, I had no idea these removal instructions would be a primary source of FreshCode traffic. If this information is helpful, please link to it, or at least rate it positively (click on the stars). Your comments are valuable. Feel free to peruse the rest of the FreshCode website.

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Categories: Articles, Security

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Comments (17) -

testy Netherlands, on 7/7/2009 9:43:35 PM Said:

testy

thanks, malware sux

mm Thailand, on 7/26/2009 9:12:41 AM Said:

mm

thank so much

James United States, on 7/29/2009 11:57:11 PM Said:

James

I have the same problem but do not have PDFforge toolbar installed and no such item is listed in add/remove.  Get same behavior in both Firefox and IE.

James United States, on 7/30/2009 12:04:44 AM Said:

James

Found it:  solution for urlseek20.vmn.net malware was different in my case.

Another cause / Another name for same problem?:

I did not have pdfforge toobar but had same problem.  Cause was
"Search settings"  Uninstall "Search Settings" with Add/Remove program.

Keywords:  "not just pdfforge toolbar"

Ziqurrat Italy, on 7/31/2009 2:51:17 PM Said:

Ziqurrat

I've got the same problem here, but I don't want to uninstall PDFCreator. After a little search (Thanks God! We've got Google!) I've found this interesting page that explains how to remove the malware from Firefox without remove PDFCreator: you have to remove an auto installed plugin named Search Settings Plugin 1.2.1
(support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php(.
The same in IE7, but the plugin is named "Search Settings Plugin IE".

appreciator , on 8/15/2009 7:54:14 PM Said:

appreciator

Thanks very much

Florian Germany, on 8/25/2009 7:54:02 PM Said:

Florian

Thank you very much! Now I can surf without this stupid malware!

dane United States, on 8/27/2009 6:38:17 PM Said:

dane

thanks for this info...

my company's access to google has been frequently getting the CAPTCHA box where users have to enter the text from a box after searching before google gives the search results.  for some reason, users with this toolbar will get a 404 error (as above) instead of the CAPTCHA when the redirect happens, so this toolbar completely breaks Google from working.  Oddly though it doesn't happen to everyone with the toolbar, but for those that it does uninstalling pdfforge is the solution.  

typO3 München Germany, on 8/29/2009 3:28:36 PM Said:

typO3 München

Thanks a lot for this how-to and the explanations! The automatic redirect to urlseek20.vmn.net got on my nerves for weeks and I had no clue that the PDFforge toolbar is the cause. I even didn't recognize that PDFCreator installed the PDFforge toolbar. It shows that this freeware has/had some unwanted side effects.

sz Canada, on 8/30/2009 5:09:41 PM Said:

sz

Thanks I thought I was infected with something serious.

Tiux United States, on 9/8/2009 8:36:54 PM Said:

Tiux

Thanks, great info! I used it for my blog in spanish.

makhz Ecuador, on 9/11/2009 8:25:48 PM Said:

makhz

Thanks a lot.

walnut Ireland, on 9/21/2009 8:16:28 PM Said:

walnut

Thanks for the info guys. Didn't have a clue where this came from and I'm always pretty careful installing stuff. I won't be using PDFForge again

Frank Marcel Brazil, on 10/6/2009 10:44:42 PM Said:

Frank Marcel

Thanks for the help. That's really annoying.

Jeremy Steele United States, on 11/13/2009 8:29:26 PM Said:

Jeremy Steele

I uninstalled the PDForge toolbar, but for some reason msn.com is still blocked on my computer.  I still get "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".

payday loans United States, on 11/29/2009 7:36:32 PM Said:

payday loans

Just wanted to say thanks for this.

Frankie Singapore, on 12/20/2009 12:38:09 PM Said:

Frankie

To James,

Thanks James. After I have removed "search setting", things are back to normal.

Appreciate your kind suggestion.

The world will be a better place to live, if everybody can help each other thru Internet.

Thanks

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