Defender hijacks my homepage

[Guest]

The initial scan found some spyware but in removing it Defender tried to
'Hijack' my home page to some Microsoft URL. Luckily I had 'Spywareguard'
installed which spotted the potential hijack and allowed me to reject the
alternative home page. Defender assumed that my homepage had been hijacked
by the spyware it had detected but there was no hijack. Why doesn't Defender
offer the choice of re-setting the homepage otherwise it's just a hijacker
like the sypware it's supposed to be removing?

I think Defender should allow you to modify your IE start, home and search
pages rather than re-setting them to some hard coded Microsoft preferred
pages.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Judith - I haven't seen this behavior yet in Windows Defender, but I believe
your description.

Here's what I suspect is happening:

In Microsoft Antispyware, there was an initial wizard that came up which
allowed the user to enter their choice of browser hijack recovery
settings--home page, search pages, etc. There were quite a few possible
entries, and it was one of the first things that came up in the new program,
and lots of folks just blew by it.

The default settings filled in were the defaults for the operating system as
installed. You may view these as Microsoft "things", but, for example, on a
Dell oem'd Windows XP, there is a Dell version of MSN and a different search
page, as I recall.

I suspect that what Microsoft has done in Defender is simply reset to the
defaults for the OS as installed, rather than add the complexity and
confusion in allowing the user to set up their own choice. Presumably the
user, over time, has made those changes from the default and can make them
again.

This is certainly an arbitrary choice, but it is one that is objectively
explainable--not something new being imposed by the program.

 

[Guest]

Bill,
Thanks for the explanation. In the long run I think Defender should follow
the MS Antispyware process and allow the user to enter their choice of
recovery settings.
Rgds