home page and tool bar problems

[davej]

I had a virus a few months ago which I have since gotten
rid of. However, it left a couple problems with my IE6.
First it left links on my toolbar to adult entertainment,
gambling, dating, etc. I cannot get it off the toolbar.
Second, it established a homepage called "Surferbar.com"
which I cannot change. Every time I attempt to access a
new web page the browser automatically goes to the
surferbar.com site (which has since been shut down). How
can I fix this? Thanks.

 

[Scott]

Dave, at the risk of making me sound foolish, let me ask,
have you right clicked the IE icon and gone into
properties and changed the home page address there? Have
you gone over on the IE6 menu bar to VIEW, then Toolbars,
and unchecked any of the bars there? Have you opened up
the Add/Remove Programs and checked for any unwanted
programs? Have you hit <START>, then <RUN> typed in
msconfig.exe <enter>, hit the <STARTUP> tab, and unchecked
any programs you didn't want to run at any time? If not,
try some of those things. If you've already done them,
you need to find a real guru around you.
Scott

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Dave - Surferbar is a new parasite that you'll need some help with. You
need to know more about what the parasite(s) is/are before you can do much
about fixing them except to apply some general tools like AdAware and/or
SpyBot S&D (see below). Start here:

Download HijackThis, free, here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip

Unzip it to any convenient folder, start it then press Scan. Click on
SaveLog when it's finished which will create hijackthis.log. Now click the
Config button, then Misc Tools and click on Generate StartupList.log which
will create Startuplist.txt

Then go to one of the following forums:

Spyware and Hijackware Removal Support, here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/forums/index.php?s=8a236cdf61469fbad3bddbe810be0374&act=SF&f=11

or Net-Integration here:
http://www.net-integration.net/cgi-...86d536d57b5f65b6e40c55365e;act=ST;f=27;t=6949

or Tom Coyote here:
http://tomcoyote.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=10&t=495&s=2c6e92805e310b519b9fa61cc7098fba

Sign in, then copy and paste both files into a message asking for
assistance, Someone will answer with detailed instructions for the removal
of your parasite(s).


For the general hijack case, the best way to start is to get Ad-Aware 6.0,
Build 181 or later, here: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/.
Update and run this regularly to get rid of most "spyware/hijackware" on
your machine. If it has to fix things, be sure to re-boot and rerun
AdAware again and repeat this cycle until you get a clean scan. The reason
is that it may have to remove things which are currently "in use" before it
can then clean up others.

Another excellent program for this purpose is SpyBot Search and Destroy
available here: http://security.kolla.de/ SpyBot Support Forum here:
http://www.net-integration.net/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi. I recommend
using both normally. After fixing things with SpyBot S&D, be sure to
re-boot and rerun SpyBot again and repeat this cycle until you get a clean
"no red" scan. The reason is that SpyBot sometimes has to remove things
which are currently "in use" before it can then clean up others.


Note that sometimes you need to make a judgement call about what these
programs report as spyware. See here, for example:
http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm


--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In

 

[Ramesh [MVP]]

Get ToolbarCop:
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/utils/ToolbarCop.exe

ToolbarCop removes the Toolbars, Toolbar buttons and unwanted
menu-extensions from Internet Explorer. It does not remove the spyware from
the system entirely. It is advisable to run Ad-Aware scan
(www.lavasoftusa.com), if the toolbar entries are not removed.

--
Ramesh - Microsoft MVP
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

~ Please reply to newsgroup ~


I had a virus a few months ago which I have since gotten
rid of. However, it left a couple problems with my IE6.
First it left links on my toolbar to adult entertainment,
gambling, dating, etc. I cannot get it off the toolbar.
Second, it established a homepage called "Surferbar.com"
which I cannot change. Every time I attempt to access a
new web page the browser automatically goes to the
surferbar.com site (which has since been shut down). How
can I fix this? Thanks.