In said:
Rob,
Have you tried it with another browser? Check out
www.mozill.org and
get Firefox to see if that works for you.
Are you sure your computer is 100% spyware and virus-free? You should
also check your hosts file. The instructions for checking the hosts
file follow these malware removal instructions:
1) Scan in Safe Mode with current version (not earlier than 2003)
antivirus using updated definitions;
2) remove spyware with Spybot Search & Destroy
(
www.safer-networking.org) and Ad-aware (
www.lavasoftusa.com). These
programs are free, so use them both since they complement each other.
There is a new version of CWShredder from
http://www.intermute.com/spysubtract/cwshredder_download.html. I would
not install the other Intermute programs, however. Alternately, there
are CoolWebSearch malware removal steps at
http://www.silentrunners.org/sr_cwsremoval.html. A combination of
HijackThis and About:Buster (
http://www.majorgeeks.com) works well in
removing homepage hijackers. Always read the instructions before
running a spyware removal tool. Be sure to update these programs before
running, and it is a good idea to do virus/spyware scans in Safe Mode.
Make sure you are able to see all hidden files and extensions (View tab
in Folder Options);
3) If you are running Windows ME or XP, you should disable/enable System
Restore because malware will be in the Restore Points. With ME, you
must disable System Restore completely. With XP, you can delete all but
the most recent (presumably clean) System Restore point from the More
Options section of Disk Cleanup (Run>cleanmgr).
4) make sure you've visited Windows Update and applied all security
patches. Do not install driver updates from Windows Update;
5) run a firewall.
Since you can't get to secure sites, if you do have malware, your hosts
file may have been compromised. Here's how to check:
1. In XP's Search preferences, set the files and folders handling to
Advanced, and then check the box that will make Search look in hidden
files/folders.
2. Now enter the search term "hosts" without the quotes.
3. You will get several hosts and lmhosts files. Double-click each one
to open it. When you do this, you'll get a Windows dialog box saying
that Windows cannot open this file, do you want to use the web or
select from a list to find the proper program. Choose "select from a
list" and highlight Notepad. Make sure the box to always use this
program to open this type of file is not checked.
4. Now carefully examine the file. Lines that begin with a # are
comments and don't count. Leave them alone. Unless you know you use a
proxy server to get to the
Internet or you added entries yourself, the only uncommented entry that
should be there is:
127.0.0.1 localhost
If you see any other entries, delete them and Save the file. Make sure
you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the window if there is a
scrollbar. Do this for each file you found. Now you should be able to
get to antivirus and spyware-fighting websites.
Let us know if you need any more help.
Malke
