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I have a terrible virus, apparently, on my laptop.

The good news is it only affects Internet usage (I can run desktop apps with no problem); better yet is that certain sites are not affected at all. But there are some that are ALWAYS a problem (another others are NEVER a problem).

What I mean by a problem is that links become unclickable, but the page becomes a "minefield" of invisible "clickspots" which open up other pages (ads, plutotv, reimageplus.com, terxer.com, popup dialogs from "microsoft.com-site.online", etc. - I even had a window today of "free xxx videos" or some such), usually making it impossible to continue on the site, or go back to the site. It is apparently ransomware, at least some of the time.

The sites that NEVER give me a problem are:

jw.org
slashdot
att.net (email)
Gmail
Duolingo
StackOverflow

Sites that are ALWAYS problematic are:

nfl.com
cnnespanol.cnn.com
theweek.com
jsonline.com

An earlier question on this gave me the idea that I was basically "sunk", that there wasn't much I could do to remove these viruses. So mainly now I'm just wondering: why some sites, consistently, and others not?

Is it that some sites have (much) better anti-virus code written to protect their users, or what?

Here is one of the popups I got this morning:

enter image description here

And unfortunately, SuperUser isn't immune, either: when I added the "Virus" tag, another page opened and got the focus; and after that, this page:

https://mediagemm.com/joinnow/step1.php?lp_tweak=general&aid=859325683544&a_bid=1ed55266&data1=newtst&data2=sites&data3=http%3A%2F%2Fsuperuser.com%2F&data4=DaDKie&a_aid=tVNce

UPDATE

It seems that at least one of my possible problems is an ostensibly helpful app, but which may actually by the problem itself, named "Sparktrust PC Cleaner"

B. Clay Shannon-B. Crow Raven
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If there is virus on your computer then no website is secure. No one can offer you any protection against threat that is already inside your computer.

Turn it off. Change passwords on any and all services you used from this computer. If you have any important data on your computer, boot into a linux distribution from a CD and back them up to location you can later scan with antivirus program and which cannot infect another computer - eg. if you put them on pen drive, don't allow any Windows computer to autorun it.

Get rid of the virus - preferably by wiping your computer's harddrive and completly reinstalling your system from scratch.

Under no circuimstances should you continue to use such system. Especially on sites that contain your personal information - email, banking, etc. The attacker might be able to steal your credentials. Even the fact, that sites which generally require you to login are the only ones which work without problem, sounds disturbing and highly suspicious.

Marek Rost
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