pop ups in Internet Explorer -a virus?

[Ryan P. Kennedy]

Hello:

Somehow I have some program that keeps popping up advertisement pages and
also changes my search engine to spider search.

Basically, when using internet explorer, after some time, an ad page pops up
(usually porno. but not always). Also, after this happens, my search engine
choice is switched to spider search (when I press the Search button on the
Internet Explorer toolbar, the spider search is the default search). Later,
if I change my default search to Yahoo (for example), and then after some
time, the ad page pops up, the default engine returns to this Spider Search.


I have Norton Personal firewall (on Windows 2000), and have found that if I
block the url www.traffichog.com, the pop ups stop. however, if I don't
have the firewall enabled, then the pop ups occur.


I think that there is some executable that is running somewhere, but I don't
know how to find it. Does anyone have any pointers?


thanks for any help,

Regards,

Ryan

 

[BobC]

Hello:

Somehow I have some program that keeps popping up advertisement pages
and also changes my search engine to spider search.

Basically, when using internet explorer, after some time, an ad page
pops up (usually porno. but not always). Also, after this happens, my
search engine choice is switched to spider search (when I press the
Search button on the Internet Explorer toolbar, the spider search is
the default search). Later, if I change my default search to Yahoo
(for example), and then after some time, the ad page pops up, the
default engine returns to this Spider Search.


I have Norton Personal firewall (on Windows 2000), and have found that
if I block the url www.traffichog.com, the pop ups stop. however, if
I don't have the firewall enabled, then the pop ups occur.


I think that there is some executable that is running somewhere, but I
don't know how to find it. Does anyone have any pointers?


thanks for any help,

Regards,

Ryan

Sounds like spyware. Try

SpyBot Search & Destroy
http://security.kolla.de/

Adaware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/