browser hijacked

[jame]

This program has set my home page to a search
page "aifind/info" I go to prperties and set my home
page back but I wont accept that. Everything I sett my
home page to comes back as page canot be found. Some
times I'm playing a on linegame or using email This
aifind comes up in the middle of what I'm doing amd my
game or mail is shutdow. I tried to find the files on my
pc to delet them but can't. Can anyone help?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

This program has set my home page to a search
page "aifind/info" I go to prperties and set my home
page back but I wont accept that. Everything I sett my
home page to comes back as page canot be found. Some
times I'm playing a on linegame or using email This
aifind comes up in the middle of what I'm doing amd my
game or mail is shutdow. I tried to find the files on my
pc to delet them but can't. Can anyone help?

Please Notice that if you use AOL, you should at least upgrade to 9.0 or
greater before doing any of the fixes. I know you can get AOL 9.0 at almost
any convenience store, gas station, super market or other retail outlet in
the world, so this should not be a problem. Also, if you are using AOL 9.0,
you will not be able to perform the first step in this list. You should
look
into another solution, such as ZoneAlarm, for a firewall.


Turn on that firewall...
http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/home/using/howto/homenet/icf.asp


Make sure you have all the updates (critical) installed from:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
(Scan for updates, Review and Install)


Get rid of the spy/ad/mal-ware..
(Yes - using MORE than one of these..
I recommend at least the first three. Also..
UPDATE the definitions for them before using.)

Spybot Search and Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.net/

Lavasoft AdAware
http://www.lavasoft.de

CWSShredder
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

Hijack This!
http://mjc1.com/mirror/hjt/

I also like "The Cleaner" and "SpywareBlaster" and "SpywareGuard".
- http://www.moosoft.com/
- http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/

The first is a PAY product, but useable for 30 days - it has found and
eliminated problems in the past the others did not. The latter two are
prevention mechanisms. SpywareBlaster is a FANTASTIC free product, I
suggest
getting this after you cleanup and keeping it updated as well....

And Assortment of Others:
http://spywareinfo.com/

ALSO - Be sure to IMMUNIZE after you clean up. SpywareBlaster and Spybot
Search and destroy both have these features - use both!


After you cleanup your PC somewhat of spy/ad/mal-ware, verify your antivirus
software is updated and run a full scan of your computer. If you have no
antivirus software - get one NOW! Grisoft AntiVirus:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php


Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to about
80 to 120MB (seems to be an optimal size for the normal user)

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section,
do the following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the
"Amount of disk space to use:" to something between 80MB
and 120MB. (Betting it is MUCH larger right now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to
"Delete all offline contents" (the checkbox) and click
OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10 minutes or
more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer
- Re-open Internet Explorer.


Uninstall any software you do not use often/ever. (If you have something
installed but never use it, uninstall it.) If you go through Control
Panel -> Add/Remove Programs and see things you seldom if ever use, it is to
your advantage to remove it.


Also, if you are tired of Web Page Pop-Ups/Unders.. You could try the
Google Toolbar.
http://toolbar.google.com/


Stop loading applications at logon.. run MSCONFIG and look under the startup
tab for things you DON'T want to startup! Search the Internet with Google
to discover what things are safe to remove and what things may even be
malware infecting your computer.


Better control your email and lessen the amount of time you spend dealing
with SPAM:
SpamBayes
http://sourceforge.net/projects/spambayes/
or
Spamihilator.
http://www.spamihilator.com

 

[InfoQuest]

Could you tell me lower details of what each feature of Immunize does
and what changes it makes to your system?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Could you tell me lower details of what each feature of Immunize does
and what changes it makes to your system?

Immunize would essentially lock down files that should not be changed "on
the fly" and prevent the changing of various registry values.

There are well over 3000 now, so no - I cannot tell you what everyone does,
nor would any sane person not involved with the project (or just more
paranoid about the fixes than the diseases) read through them all if I
could. Perhaps the web pages for the products would have the details you
would need to better make your decision on whether to do that or not.

 

[InfoQuest]

Agree... that would be too low level.. Let me try again... about a month
ago I downloaded and installed Spybot S&D 1.2. I did not have it fix
anything. The only thing I did was get updates and did the various Immunize
options. My IE stopped working and would only flash. It turns out that
the "Permanent Internet Explorer immunity" somehow corrupted my BlackIce
baseline file to the point BlackIce had to be reinstalled. Using Immunize
comes highly recommended, therefore I am trying to get a better
understanding of what internal IE settings are tweaked by "Permanent
Internet Explorer Immunity." Is all this do is to lock down certain files?
Spybot also indicates that blocking is accomplished by their Active X ID.
Is this an added process that is running? Is there a performance hit?

Spybot help indicates that "Permanently running bad download blocker for
IE" blocks anything that comes through by different aspects. At a high
level, what is this doing or how is this accomplished?