I may be infected - HELP PLEASE!

[Guest]

I have up to date virus scanner, firewalls and spyware/adware blockers yet i
think i am infected. Whenever i use ANY search engine for ANY keyword it says
there are so many thousand results, yet all it displays are 20-15 porn sites.
A toolbar has started to appear entitled AZESEARCH and my bandwidth sems very
slow all of a sudden. No matter what I set my homepage to, every time i
re-open Internet Explorer it reverts to http://www.top20search.com. Is this
to do with an ActiveX control that may have been installed? If so, how can i
isolate and delete it?

Any help would be most appreciated!

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Azesearch is adware. The safest way to remove it is with adware removal
software. Even so, not all adware is removable, and even when adware is
removed, it may leave your computer unstable.

 

[JoeM]

Use Ad-aware (make sure it is up to date and it does a full scan) (tip: a
full scan will take about 1/2 hour or more)
Also Try Microsoft Ant-spyware Beta.
Also note make sure you are not connected to the internet when you do these
scans. Some adware will update them selfs when you try and remove them.

 

[PA Bear]

Checking for/Help with Hijackware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=5878
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/data/prevention.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/archive/tshoot.html
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/Malware_Defence.htm
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/

When all else fails, HijackThis v1.99.1
(http://aumha.net/downloads/hijackthis.zip) is the preferred tool to use.
It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. **Post
your log to http://forums.spywareinfo.com/,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html or http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30
for expert analysis, not here.**

 

[Guest]

Sorry Ted, but this didn't work (but only becasue my version of Ad-Aware
wasn't good enough)

Thank you though

 

[Guest]

Thank you Joe.

Microsoft Anti-spyware sorted it out straight away!

 

[Guest]

Hi PA Bear

JoeM's advice worked before I even read yours. Will bear (no pun intended)
your advice in mind for the future though.

Cheers

 

[JoeM]

Always like happy endings.

Keys things to remember, keep windows uptodate, keep Antivirus uptodate,
and when using IE or any browser, it it asks you to install something and
you don't know who the company is or what it is for do not install it. Also
be carefull of free products and p2p products most of them have spyware.

Always glad to help