Does my brother have a virus or something?

[Johnez]

Quick story here.  About 4 years ago I helped my bro set up an IRA with Fidelity.  Every now and then when I'm at his place, he asks me questions and sometimes asks if he needs to adjust his contributions. The limit for IRAs got bumped up this year, so I changed it for him.  While doing that I noticed some "links" in the Fidelity website advertising a random book when hovering over them, and direct to a website.  There were other links all over the page.  I accidentally clicked on one, and a really gawdy ugly bullcrap site popped up in a new tab.  So, I am not super savvy here, but I suspect there is some sort of virus or malware on his computer, because I've never experienced anything like this on my Fidelity profile.  I would google this, but I'm kind of weary of website links and not sure who to trust and who's pushing malware.  If I could be pointed in the right direction, I'd appreciate it, thanks fellas.

[edit] Just attached a screenshot of what's going on.

[shuffler]

Look in  the lower-right of the advertising box that you highlighted.
You covered it up a bit, but I think it says "Ads by MapScout"?

If you google "ads by mapsscout" or maybe "map scout", you'll find people saying that it's a browser extension.
The likely remedy would be to disable/remove the browser extension.

(ETA that if I found an expected extension on my machine, I'd nuke the box from orbit and change all my passwords.  But your brother seems unlikely to be as paranoid as I am.)

[Johnez]

Thank you very much, that make sense. He's got all sorts of things on his browser, though nothing that looked fishy or out of place. I'll followup tomorrow.

My bro is very un-paranoid, he recently got his work email hacked which caused all sorts of havoc. I asked him bout the links and he didn't realize it might be an issue.

[Johnez]

In case anyone ever comes across this thread in the future, the issue wasn't so much a program on the computer, but a browser addon or extension.  Never dealt with this before personally, was a bit befuddled when I went to uninstall this MapScout crap from my bro's computer and nothing shows in the programs.  Malwarebytes has an adware program that addresses this crap though, fixed her right up!

Thanks for the help shuffler.

[Edit] a word

[Linea_Norway]

I think it is a good idea to install ad-blockers and pop-up blockers as well. I think that can remove some of these issues.

[sparkytheop]

I was going to suggest Malware bytes, but I see you have used that.  It's an awesome program for getting rid of sneaky stuff.

[Tass]

There are malware browser extensions, for the record. If it mysteriously re-installs itself after you've removed it from the browser, then yeah, he's got a virus.

I was worried the thread title was asking for medical advice, so I'm pleased it's about computers instead.

[Johnez]

Thanks, I'll consider it.