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General discussion

Internet explorer hijacked by ads, Help!

by drunktom Nov 28, 2004 4:57AM PST

So last night my brother and his friend were looking at porn on my computer and now my explorer is jacked. When I start it about:blank comes up, only its not a blank screen like normal, its one of those search link sites selling everything from ***** to airline tickets. Also a few pop up ads about my computer being infected and them selling me the crap cure. It also all pops up (explorer too) as soon as I launch AIM which is weird.
I ran the spyware programs I have and changed the homepage, defaulted the settings to the original. I cant get rid of it. It just changes back the settings to this fake about:blank "searching for...microsoft internet explorer" every time I open explorer.
This happened about a year ago on my old computer, but not this bad (that time I was looking at porn and have since learned to only do that on the work computer) and I ended up reformatting the hard drive just to get rid of it. Anyone know what I need to delete or had this happen?

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4 Posts
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Re: Internet explorer hijacked by ads, Help!
by David Chan Nov 28, 2004 5:04AM PST

Try scanning with:
*Ad-AwareSE
*CWShredder
*SpyBot Search & Destroy
*Online Virus Scan from HouseCall + Panda.

Sometimes you may have to scan in Safe Mode or disable all startup itmes in MSCONFIG.

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Re: Internet explorer hijacked by ads, Help!
by MarkFlax Former Forum moderator Nov 28, 2004 6:44AM PST

Do all those things David Chan said.

I take it that you were joking?

[Quote](that time I was looking at porn and have since learned to only do that on the work computer)[EndQuote]

Otherwise you mean that you don't mind if you get your computer at work infected. Is it on an office Lan, an Intranet? And every other computer on the intranet if so.

And I haven't even started about the PC of it, (political correctness).

Mark

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Re: Internet explorer hijacked by ads, Help!
by drunktom Nov 28, 2004 12:18PM PST

Spybot found it, thanks. Guess not all programs are the same. Took 3 to get it.

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Re: Internet explorer hijacked by ads, Help!
by madforce Nov 29, 2004 4:53AM PST

Boot into safe mode, run all the spyware apps you can find, reboot into safe mode again and run them again. My spyware apps replicate themselves and it takes several apps and reboots to get them all.

I highly recommend Webroot Spysweeper...not only does it find and remove scumware, it acts like a spyware firewall and blocks them from coming in.

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