Summary:

In Chromium (Debian), can you tell me how get rid of whatever is causing
the behaviour called "Green Double-Underlined Links pop-up ads". I'd
like to STOP the behaviour, not just block it with some kind of blocker.

How can I prevent my laptop from being affected by this problem in the
future?

The problem is awful, and is really getting on my wick. (Not your fault of
course). :-)

In the meantime, is is safe for me to continue to use my computer, and to use
the Internet? Thanks.

Full details:

1. About a week ago (starting about 12Aug14) I started getting green double-
underlined links appearing under numerous words and phrases in web page text.
Also, at the same time, intrusive adverts started appearing everywhere, on web
pages. These aren't the usual ads on web pages but are new and extremely
intrusive. The green double-underlined links are also very intrusive and
misleading.

I could tell that something new was going on.

2. The site
http://malwaretips.com/blogs/green-d...d-ads-removal/
says that on Windows, the above problem is caused by ADWARE, and tells you how
to remove it from Windows, but NOT from Linux. However, the site IS informative
about what the adware is, and how it gets onto Windows.

3. I don't know if the double-underline problem etc is caused in Linux in the
same way as Windows, but I followed 2 of the principles in the above removal
guide:
a) Checked for any new Chromium plugins that I don't think should be there. I
did this by opening a new tab and entering "chrome://plugins". I've got 9
plugins BUT NONE OF THEM SEEM TO BE NEW.
b) Looked at what packages I've recently installed, to see if they look as
though they might have secretly installed this adware.

The 4 lines from the output below are my recently installed packages. I used the
following command to list them:

cat /var/log/dpkg.log | grep "\ install\ "

014-08-03 21:17:12 install mencoder:i386 <none> 2:1.0~rc4.dfsg1+svn34540-1+b2
2014-08-05 20:01:42 install libgpac2:i386 <none> 0.5.0~dfsg0-1
2014-08-05 20:01:43 install gpac-modules-base:i386 <none> 0.5.0~dfsg0-1
2014-08-05 20:01:44 install gpac:i386 <none> 0.5.0~dfsg0-1

I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW IF ANY OF THESE PACKAGES COULD HAVE INSTALLED THE ADWARE,
*IF* that's how the problem occurs in Linux.

4. I've got just one Chromium extension, which is Adblock Plus v1.7.4, which has
been there for some time.

5. Excuse my noddy wording, but I'm wondering if the double-underline etc
behaviour is being caused by a program on the Internet (remote from my laptop),
and not actually a program that's on my hard drive.

6. I would be very grateful if you could tell me how to stop this awful problem.

Most likely it is not malware on your PC. These scripts were deliberately placed on the websites by their owners. Be sure to let them know how you feel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IntelliTXT

To Smallpond #2:

Many thanks, but these double-underlined links AND the ads are appearing
WHOLESALE on most webpages. This STARTED happening SUDDENLY, since about
12Aug14 (for me), on MOST of the webpages that I visit.

I don't think it's to do with just certain websites that are doing it, as
you kindly suggest. Unless all the sites I visit have All suddenly started doing
it.

There's even an example of such an ad immediately below your post! It's shown in
MY browser window at any rate. The link address of the ad is

http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&a ... enormous URL.

And the ad title is "Tired of commitments?"

But if that's a legit LQ ad, another one appeared later which I keep getting on
many websites now, entitled "Cover ... costs". It's full link address is

http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=
CkNpvKK_zU4adCovz7QacjoCAAuvZ0ZdBm4eClZIBv-EeEAEg-
U9Q68nOsPr_____AWC7rsGD0AqgAa3t0N0DyAEBqQJGCUtTPOK7PqgDAcgDwwSqBKUBT9DLOd47oDmrR
hVlPhQFCsS9LarYczK9QkvZZ3ZXFsgY-rE6J5qRX4_MY-
yobUnWRqe8gZFHLJg46kbCyNyKXgLjlKVx9eG884rrueuQN57k-
zP2oqgsGK6UyaIrJBtg4QlBjgwnY8r8C32hJ8d0uQl331b3fZZmcfg4WxzJgsum-
QX8fi5lAsh0xtuaFqiBeDfJLGU0Bw36eFnhsLjTRw96grzegAe7kq8i&num=1&sig=AOD64_0-
Poxul4hV1UORgMx5F_B_-p9J2g&client=ca-undefined&adurl=http://www.goldencharter.co
.uk/free-brochure%3Fsrc%3DWBPPC8&nm=2&mb=2&bg=!
A0QG_rODV_RXGAIAAAAmUgAAAB0qAOY_oalQBXkYsagDreSup9SxWcA7nv8GMJarQtEibEfPR3ZHho5m
kxhomh6xa70nTBtmVrvN-
E_qwqIj0IJtI7r1Afxe6863FmjYj4yFfcfquHH7BdaPk08wOknxQEk0mkgVWHp2ueYglg0yEiquWdKRh
N-443vp0Zh98GbNYvqaIfzjPDhAEmBCtn3eHecOUVoPfalt-9qnJgNRB8-
NXVKRyCwuFteaiLBZgHlvZtLX-
qXtCw6LmCP_0YECkHEX8znQhwQwL41PlmfC_QTZ4dvhsTwa4eiYwUuG3Uahu5ikmLVpOn_ayA

Do you get this behavior on another browser at all? Do you have firefox installed or some other one to give this a go? I have a sneaking suspicion it could be tied to chrome.

Google stuffed its browsers down everybody's throats, and, guess what, they also rigged it to stuff their ads into everybody's websites.

Yeah, that is why I asked if he had that with other browsers. I quit with Chrome and Chromium....

Does it also happen with a live DVD?

If yes - maybe your router got hacked. Does it also happen with https connections or through TOR? In both cases, your router cannot read or intercept the traffic.

Thanks everyone for your very insightful advice. I decided to try using a
different browser to Chromium, so I tried Iceweasel. THIS SEEMS TO HAVE SOLVED
THE PROBLEM.

I now don't get the green double-underlined links or the intrusive ads. Running
NoScript in Iceweasel stops the green double-underlined links.

Note that the new intrusive ads DON'T APPEAR whether NoScript is set to block
things or not. I HAVEN'T got Adblock Plus installed in Iceweasel. However, I
suspect that when I visit websites that have TYPICAL ads (not the new intrusive
ads seen with Chromium), that I WILL need Adblock Plus as usual, to block those.

The site http://www.tomshardware.com/news/goo...ins,24377.html
may (or may not?) explain the cause of the new intrusive ads in
Chrome/Chromium. It contains the article "Google Banning Most Plugins in Chrome
Starting Jan 2014". My crude understanding is that because Google owns
Chrome/Chromium, Google can DICTATE whether ads are shown on sites?

Therefore (if the above explanation is right) even using AdBlock Plus with
Chromium won't stop the ads.

I recommend installing Ghostery. It will install in both iceweasel and chrome, and prevents most of this crap. I don't even bother to run Adblock, and won't, as it now allows ads from companies which pay it.

And the page linked above does not say that Google will ban all plugins, only specific ones based on obsolete standards, the ones causing crashes and hangs because they're outdated. You need to read past headlines.

This refers to plugins like Flash and Java, not extensions like AdBlock or NoScript (although I think NoScript can't be ported to Chrome/Chromium because of some other API deficiency).

There's a nice fork of AdBlock that doesn't.

Significant additional comments to my previous post:

1. I forgot to mention that Iceweasel is effectively Firefox.

2. I think the following comment I made was wrong (sorry): "Note that the new
intrusive ads DON'T APPEAR whether NoScript is set to block things or not." I
discovered that when I disabled NoScript, the intrusive ads DO APPEAR. So
NoScript is evidently blocking them.

3. Overall thoughts re the green double-underlined links AND intrusive ads:

a) It seems that this problem does affect browsers OTHER THAN Chrome/Chromium.
b) It seems that this problem is not malware on my hard drive as I first feared.