[SOLVED] Got some weird picture of a dog comes up when I use the internet

[jt101]

HI everyone

Bit stumped with this one, and I'm concerned it may be malicious

All of a sudden, when I try to access certain pages on the internet, I get this image of a dog comes up made from characters: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1chWN8U6CAdv10Ihtu_Z8e3kVP83uQeXW?usp=sharing


If I read through the reviews of an Amazon product for example on the first page everything is normal. But then I click the second page of reviews and this image comes up.

It happens on other pages also, though I can't remember right now what they are. Other than that I can browse the web with no problems. Am using the latest version of CHrome. Tried Microsoft Edge, and I get a similar problem, but not identical. When I click on the second page of reviews the screen is just blank. See second attached image.

Ran virus checker, it found nothing. Deleted cookies, cache, reset the computer. Checked I was all up to date with updates, and am ok.

Only browser extension I have is Honey, on Chrome. It's not on Edge, so it seems strange I have a problem there also.

Started about 2 weeks ago.

Any suggestions welcome

Thanks

 

[Deicidium369]

LOL that is pretty odd... I wish I could help - when I read this I thought maybe it was a 404 error message - some admins get cute and add weird images ...

 

[mdd1963]

Most browsers have a 'revert/reset to defaults' options...

Check your homepage settings.....; something is indeed directing you there.

A quick scan with Malwarebytes Antimalware (free for personal use) never hurt anyone....

 

[jt101]

Did the reset on the browser, and ran Malwarebytes. Neither did anything.

Homepage is now set as Google, but makes no difference

Getting pretty annoying as I can't read any reviews on Amazon. But oddly have yet to notice it on any other sites. And as I said, the dog shows up in Chrome, nd a blank page in Edge. So obivously something to do with accessing the Amazon website

 

[Ralston18]

I just went to Amazon's website and searched for the lawn mower referenced in the dog picture URL.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Makita-DLM380Z-Manual-Lawn-Mower/dp/B00K6XNTPE

Internet Explorer. Did not see any dog pictures and no problems with any second page reviews.

Your dog pictures URL's seem to have picked up "tails" of their own.

I.e., "ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show" and "ref=cm_cr_dp_d_showall_btm" respectively.

Go into Amazon, find a review where the dog picture (dog or blank) appear.

Delete the tail at the end of the URL. Refresh.

What happens?

 

[jt101]

Hi Ralston

If you can be bothered, here is a short video of what happens when i do that:

View: https://youtu.be/Zhfr1q3EXqc


I delete the tails, and it does nothing. Try several times and then eventually it goes to a pure reviews page i.e. no product details or description.

So its delaying this process. So then i scroll down and try to go to the followng page of reviews.

It takes me back to the top of that page. Second time I do it, it takes me to the next page.

Eventually i can't get to the final page of reviews. It's acting very oddly

This is totally wierd

 

[mdd1963]

Do you perhaps have a restore point from 2 weeks ago that you can revert to?

 

[Ralston18]

Interesting video.

I noticed something else: When I went to Amazon via the link I posted the URL has "dp' in between

mower and Book. "...Mower/dp/BOOK...."

Your link has "product-reviews" instead of "dp" . Plus that tail has what appears to be an inherent ref (reference) to "dp".

What happens if you manually type in the entire "dp" path that I used via your browsers?

====

Wondering about that "ref=cm_cr_dp_d_showall_btm" I googled it expecting some HTML or XML related explanations.

Got a rather interesting mixed bag of images. Dresses, birdbaths, turntables - nothing obscene or gross. No dog though.

Overall, the problem may simply be some combination of buggy and/or corrupted code. And your computer is stuck in some sort of path limbo with regards to Amazon.

Maybe some website designer can look at the paths and code to determine what is going on.

Anyway, following @mdd1963's lead - do you have a restore point?

Just get back to normal functioning and consider the whole episode a weird anamoly.

Post-mortems being optional thereafter.

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Have you by any chance looked at or downloaded any games walkthroughs , the reason I ask is because I have seen sketches like this at the top of some peoples walkthroughs , maybe something got left behind.

 

[jt101]

Thanks so much for all your replies. To MJS Walord, I never play or download any games, so I doubt that was a reason.
Just got on the computer, and all of a sudden it stopped doing that weird thing. I can now access following pages of reviews. Which is great, because I always read reviews before I buy anything.
Excellent suggestion mdd1963. If this problem returns, I think that is the way forward but for now, I think best leave things alone.

Thanks again. You may be hearing from me again, but hopefully not!