Hi Fred
I have had similar problems in the past and have
researched it and basically you have a browser
hijacker,and probably other malware.
fyi,Regular virus scaners like mcafee,norton,etc. dont
stop many non traditional threats like Datamining,
aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, Keyloggers,
Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking
components.
Here are the 4 best ones i use and you realy need to use
all four they all have somewhat different abilitys of
scaning and blockers,just be sure and read their help
files and set the options,allot of malware get into your
registry and their can be false positives but all in all
they are very easy to use and have quarintine and
recovery features in case you delete something by
mistake, and best of all they are FREE or have free
versions that work well, i use the free ones.
1.Ad-aware 6.0 by LAVASOFT
# Downloads - Support - Lavasoft
.... Choose a site to download your copy of Ad-aware, the
Ad-aware Help file, RefUpdate, RegHance and Ad-search
from. ...
www.lavasoft.de/support/download
2.# SpyBot-Search&Destroy
.... The bad guys never sleep - nor do we. Spybot-S&D is
in continuos development, and if you haven't subscribed
to our ...
beam.to/spybotsd
http://beam.to/spybotsd
3.SpywareBlaster. it doesn't scan and clean for spyware -
it prevents it from ever being installed.
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
4.SpywareGuard provides a real-time protection solution
against spyware that is a great addition to
SpywareBlaster's protection method.
http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html
An anti-virus program scans files before you open them
and prevents execution if a virus is detected -
SpywareGuard does the same thing, but for spyware! And
you can easily have an anti-virus program running
alongside SpywareGuard.
SpywareGuard now also features Download Protection and
Browser Hijacking Protection!
Note, you should also have a good firewall and virus
scaner.
Here some links to other great stuff.
anti-viruses, anti-trojans, firewalls and spyware
free security services and free tools
knowledge about pc-security very useful and quite
interesting information, free security software and free
services as well. Just browse to-http://
www.wilders.org/
those pages you will find interesting. And there are
quite a lot of them.
http://www.wilders.org/
1.note. Ad-aware 6.0 by LAVASOFT is THE award winning,
multi-trackware detection and removal utility (designed
for Windows 98 / 98SE / ME / NT40 / 2000 / XP Home / XP
Pro) that will comprehensively scan your memory,
registry, hard, removable and optical drives for known
Datamining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware,
Keyloggers, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers,
Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components.
Ad-aware will provide you with the confidence to surf the
Internet knowing that your privacy will remain intact.
2.note.Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove
spyware of different kinds from your computer. Spyware is
a relatively new kind of threat that common anti-virus
applications do not yet cover. If you see new toolbars in
your Internet Explorer that you didn't intentionally
install, if your browser crashes, or if you browser start
page has changed without your knowing, you most probably
have spyware. But even if you don't see anything, you may
be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging
that is silently tracking your surfing behaviour to
create a marketing profile of you that will be sold to
advertisement companies. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's
no harm in trying to see if something snooped into your
computer, too
3.SpywareBlaster doesn't scan and clean for spyware - it
prevents it from ever being installed.
By setting a "kill bit" for spyware ActiveX controls,
SpywareBlaster can prevent the installation of any
spyware ActiveX controls from a webpage. It does this
while not interfering with "friendly" ActiveX controls -
so your browser can work correctly and you can have peace
of mind!
You won't get any more annoying "Yes/No" boxes popped up,
asking you to install a spyware ActiveX control (which
can increasingly be found in pop-up ads!). In fact,
Internet Explorer will never even download or run the
spyware ActiveX control!
In addition, SpywareBlaster can prevent many of these
spyware ActiveX controls from running, even if they are
already installed on your system.*
The newest SpywareBlaster version can even block
spyware/tracking cookies!
And SpywareBlaster does not need to be running in the
background to provide this protection!
The SpywareBlaster database contains information on these
known spyware Active-X controls. Make sure you run the
Check For Updates feature frequently to get the latest
database! (And make sure you check the new items to
protect your system against them!)
SpywareBlaster also provides the exclusive System
Snapshot! - Take a snapshot of your computer in its clean
state, and use System Snapshot later to revert many
changes made by spyware and browser hijackers!
4. note. SpywareGuard now also features Download
Protection and Browser Hijacking Protection!
Features Listing:
* Fast Real-Time Scanning engine - catch and block
spyware before it is executed (EXE and CAB files
supported) with signature-based scanning for known
spyware and heuristic/generic detection capabilities to
catch new mutated spyware
* Download Protection - prevent spyware from being
download in Internet Explorer
* Browser Hijacking Protection - stop browser
hijacking activity in real-time
Note sorry for so much info but it takes a bit of info to
deal with such a big problem. once you get rid of the
hijacker your browser should go back to normal if not
then on toolbar click on tools then click options then go
threw the options to set things back to default.and be
sure to update ie6to latest verison ie6sp1 allong with
the security updates for it and windows.
Take care hope this helps you.
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