Unwanted computer downloads

I hope that someone can help me get rid of this problem.  About 3 weeks ago whilst working happily away my Google Chrome screen told me that a download was being made to my computer.  It was a WhatApp page, which I was able to delete.  Now I am getting up to 40 downloads a day, some of which you cannot cancel by using the ‘x’ button, nor once they are downloaded can you get rid of them without simply turning the computer off.  It is very annoying that these a$$holes can just take control of your system with impunity.  Once, a couple of days ago, my system informed me that something called – I think – adDragon could not be loaded, I went into Add/Remove programmes and deleted it hoping that would do the trick, but no.

Does anyone know what I can do to stop this.

Thanks  for your help – I hope!

I'm no expert but you could try 

1) In windows go to Control Panel > Programs and features and see if there is a program there that looks wrong or spurious or something that you didn't install, you can see a date when it was installed that might coincide with when the problem started. - Uninstall the program

2)Click on the settings of your Google Browser then go to Extensions, have a look and see if there is anything there that might have caused the proplem if so delete/uninstall

Thank you for that,  I went into extensions but the only one there was real downloader, and it wasn't enabled.  I've just started making a note of the information given regarding an attempted download.

In the last 5 minutes they are

openadserving,com

redirect

yieldmanager

novedades

I just wish they would all go away.

Thanks again

For those not computer literate:-

When you download a prog, especially free ones,  always choose ‘install manually’ never ‘express’ or similar.  Then you can delete all the ‘extra progs’ which otherwise  will be included in the free download.  Some of those extras can be very difficulty to get rid of once installed.

Plantagenet

If you google some of your information such as 'yield master' it seems quite a serious problem you have, plenty of advice though on how to get rid of it either by removing it manually or gettng/downloading cleanup software. be careful what you download though!! Its still worth trying to remove it through the add/remove section of the windows control panel.

From the Internet.

How to remove YieldMaster

"Here I take IE for example: 

1. Open Internet Explorer. In Internet Explorer go to: Tools -> Internet Options. 
2. On the "General" tab, under Temporary Internet files, click "Settings".
3. Click "View Files" button.
4. A new window titled "Temporary Internet Files" will show up. Search for cookies: ad.yieldmanager.com, 

content.yieldmanager.com, yieldmanager.com or yieldmanager.net and delete them. It's content.yieldmanager.com in our case.

NOTE: if for any reason you can't find those cookies then simply delete all the cookies from your computer. 
# On the "General" tab, click "Delete" under Browsing History in the "Internet Options" dialog box. 
# In the "Delete Browsing History" dialog box, click to clear all of the check boxes except for the Cookies check box.
# Click "Delete".
5.Close that window.
6. To access Internet Explorer's cookie options, select Tools -> Options -> Privacy tab. Then click on "Sites" button. 
7. Type in yieldmanager.com and click "Block" button. You should also add yieldmanager.net to the list. Now both domain names should be listed in the "Managed websites" list. 
8. Click "OK" to save the changes. That's it!

Before you do any thing else like loading other stuff, or pressing more buttons, and presuming your on a Windows computer why not do a restore to an earlier date, like to before you loaded these extra downloads, this as a rule will fix many problems.

Good Idea Baz - As long as restore points have been enabled.

Good Idea Baz - As long as restore points have been enabled.

Well, I am the last person to ask for info on computers but I have had to do this several times on my Dell laptop, and a top of the range piece of Dell crap it is as well, thanks to Windows keep coming up with "Updates"  the main reasons I changed everything to Apple Mac's.

Pretty sure if the computer is a newish type it does its own restore points, mine always did without me doing it.

Thanks everyone for the information.  I am a bit wary of deleting things as I am bound to make a big mistake - I get quite frightened when a message pops up saying something like 'do you really want to do this?'

I have not downloaded any programmes - I only browse (is that the right word?) I go  to sites for pleasure, for information etc.  What I have downloaded are pictures and stuff like that because I make my own greetings cards.

My computer is very old and strangely enough I had a message from Microsoft this morning telling me that they are pulling all support for Windows XP on April 8th., which, they say, will leave my computer vulnerable to all sorts of nasty things and I really should get a new computer and Windows 8.1.

Oh dear, trials and tribulations.

My computer is very old and strangely enough I had a message from Microsoft this morning telling me that they are pulling all support for Windows XP on April 8th.,

I find extremely unlikely that there will be no support for XP. 

I understand that there are still a substantial number of  XP operating systems (29%)  being used  (win 7,  with 47%).  So if MS pull out someone will probably see the hole as  a business opportunity which they can fill.

My computer is very old and strangely enough I had a message from Microsoft this morning telling me that they are pulling all support for Windows XP on April 8th., which, they say, will leave my computer vulnerable to all sorts of nasty things and I really should get a new computer and Windows 8.1.

Yes, they are pulling the plug on XP very soon, that doesn't mean you wont get any support for a little while, or software etc etc, just that as time goes on this system will be a thing of the past and probably what will happen is not many people will want to work on them when a fault does happen due to this lack of support and parts. You probably wont get a virus as the bug boys will concentrate on W8 from now on.

Windows 7 wont work nicely on XP so thats a waste of time trying that one, some have tried it's a 50/50 thing,  thankfully the price of computers has dropped dramatically so buying a new one is not the hardship it used to be.

Even if you only browse sites, any sites,  you can get all the bugs you don't need, you have to remember that the idiots who do the bugs will try anything to mess up things, and it's often been said / thought that the ant-virus people send bugs out to make you buy ant-virus software....No bugs...No one buys ant-virus.

To the lesser computer literate.

Win 7, 8,  and XP are operating systems. They do ‘work on each other’ they work on computers,(rather like the driver in car).

I installed win 7  as a separate boot-up system on a laptop which has XP, so I have both systems on te machine.  I also have two versions of Win 7, (English Ultimate and Spanish Home Basic working on my PC).   When booting up I choose which system I want to load.   Both machines work perfectly on which system I choose..

That said, if your computer is really old, then it  is probably cheaper to buy a new one with an operating system already installed, than to buy an operation prog.  for  the existing machine.  I understand that win 8 is not very popular as it relies mainly on touch screen technology (which I hate, give me a mouse and keyboard).  A couple of friends of mine took their new machines to a local shop here and had the techno install win 7, probably an illegal download but they work fine.

This might help you decide :- 

    www.pcadvisor.co.uk/buying-advice/software/3490112/windows-7-vs-windows-8/

Pitby,  of course what you say is correct but I think this is interesting 

Quote:---

Despite being more than 11 years old, Windows XP remains very popular, running on nearly 39 percent of the world’s computers, according to the latest data from the Net Applications analytics company.

To put that in context, Windows XP’s market share not that much less than Windows 7 (at 45 percent) and a whole lot more than Windows 8 (at a little more than 3 percent) which of course just launched a few months ago.

I do not think that industry is not going to rush out and spend the millions needed to replace their  XP systems, when it  is meeting their current needs. 

Apparently a lot of the World's ATMs work on XP. The banks are going to have to fork out even more now!!

XP was a good operating system, in its day, many who went to W7 didn't like it, just as those who have gone into W8, die hards who just wont accept progress tend to stick in the good old days, good or bad, but as with many new things the next one is in someways much better, not always though.

As I said it's a 50/50 mix with some trying it and it not working nicely, and whats the point of having XP and W7 on the same machine, you cant use both at the same time, W7 does more then XP, W8 does more then W7 and XP.

XP was a good operating system, in its day, many who went to W7 didn't like it, just as those who have gone into W8, die hards who just wont accept progress tend to stick in the good old days, good or bad, but as with many new things the next one is in someways much better, not always though.

As I said it's a 50/50 mix with some trying it and it not working nicely, and whats the point of having XP and W7 on the same machine, you cant use both at the same time, W7 does more then XP, W8 does more then W7 and XP.

Don't know why this posted twice...Computer ill-literate suppose.