Unable to use any search engines?

[Luke Barber]

Hey!

For some reason any search engines, such as Google,
Yahoo, Altavista, even the Search box on MSN, everytime I
use them, or try to, it just sits there and times out
saying page cannot be displayed/found.

All other sites are working, and every other computer on
the network can access and use the search engines... i'm
baffled as to why I can't.

No firewall, all network settings are correct and have
been reset multiple times.

Any Ideas??

 

[Gio]

I've been having the same problem since last night, Search
Companion isn't working either. I checked all my settings
and even tried to decipher my running processes in Task
Manager, but everything _looks_ like it should be working,
which, of course, it isn't.

 

[ANDY.]

I posted this same exact thing last night!! Mine also
started doing this and I CAN NOT FIX it! I even removed
IE and reinstalled. Someone with an idea, please
respond. I'm guessing some MS hotfix just caused this!

 

[BobC]

I posted this same exact thing last night!! Mine also
started doing this and I CAN NOT FIX it! I even removed
IE and reinstalled. Someone with an idea, please
respond. I'm guessing some MS hotfix just caused this!

I'm guessing you've been hijacked by spyware. Try running Spybot Search and
Destroy: http://www.safer-networking.org/

 

[ANDY.]

Now I figured it out, and fixed it. My system, and
yours, was affected by spyware. Go to
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm and follow the
instructions. Download and run the spybot program, then
run the other program that scans again and finds the
HOSTS file issue, where all the search engine
possibilities have been rerouted to another IP address.

 

[Gio]

Okay, did some research, and I think it has to do with the
QHosts trojan horse that's been circulating this past week
or so. I found good info on it here:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_100719.htm

Apparently, it creates a file that redirects all those
sites, but I'm not sure where.

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

No, it's the new Qhosts bug.
http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_100719.htm
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.qhosts.html