Somehow my computer has been altered so that when a webpage cannot be found I am directed to one of those God-awful “search engines” that is nothing but a bunch of sleazy ads. How can I change it back to the wonderful nothing it was before?
I am using IE on XP, OK?
Also get Adaware. And update both for the latest protection.
You may not be able to.
Some enterprising souls have registered domain names and set it up so that mistyped or unfound urls are redirected to their page. For example, if I mistype the url for Drudge’s page, I get a knock-off search engine:
Note how the missing “e” in drudge gives the different result.
Another example is searching for a page that doesn’t really exist:
www.foo.com actually sends me to www.yeah.com. They have set it up to redirect.
Some non-existing urls have not been redirected. www.leenmi.com gives me a page not found error.
So, I’d try going to www.leenmi.com. If you get page not found, there is probably nothing wrong with your browser. If you get a search engine, keep digging.
I do not belive that this is a spyware problem, but rather that it is some arcane setting that needs to be changed. A little like how your homepage will sometimes be changed to one of those “search engines”. It is not something that Adaware would catch.
Yes, but Spybot will. There are evil URLs out there that can change your home page for you by going into your registry (and yes, a bunch of them are search engine sites). I’ve had it happen to me several times, and Spybot always catches it and gets rid of it for me.
Some sites sell ads on their 404 (File Not Found) error pages, to the extent of turning them into search engines. There’s also the issue leenmi noted. Aside from this, it’s not like homepages as the browser SHOULD be merely displaying the page the server tells it to, or it’s own internal “friendly” HTTP error message (which has no ads or search engines). If you’re seeing ads on sites that should display a normal error (see straightdope.com/Alereon_is_really_cecil!.html, then it’s spyware.
There are some that are near impossible to get rid of. There is a workaround if you simply prefer not to see those unsolicited search engines.
Find your HOSTS file somewhere in the windows directory. Open the file in Notepad and add a line as follows:
127.0.0.1 <address of search engine>
Save and close. For instance, I cannot seem to get rid of netster. Adding this line
127.0.0.1 yo.netster.com
redirects the call to netster back to me or something like that.
The address will still show up in the IE address bar, but I get the plain old 404 error page instead of the netster search engine.
No, no, no. I know the difference between some site’s 404 and this.
for example, does the Chicago Reader really mean to send me to ://www.perfectnav.com/index.cfm?action=lookup&pc=pnkz&arg=DNS&Keywords=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=233316&uid=29E1E7E6-65D2-49BB-943D-7EE87C0BD001 if a page on the SDMB does not load?
This does not occur with only one site, or only within one domain. Some setting in my computer has been altered so that I am sent to that stupid “search” site.
On another computer if I type giberish into the address bar I am sent to what looks like the standard “The page cannot be displayed” page, except that in the middle of it is ANOTHER damned “offer” to search for somthing new with the helpfull catagories of
Cars, Free Software, Casino, Health, Travel, Computers, Jobs, Web Entertainment, Music, Web Hosting, Ebay, Real Estate, Finance, and Shopping listed.
These were obviously changes that were made to some setting within my two computers and they are not fixed by any spyware fixer.
Have you tried Spybot on this?
Yes.
Did you update Spybot? (Left side, Online, Search For Updates, Download Update)
Yesum.
I think that there is probably just some arcane registry key that I need to edit here, but darned if I know where (or what) it would be.
You know what? If you open regedit and check out the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/AboutURLs folder, it has a couple of things there that may be what you’re looking for (but I don’t really know enough about computerish things to say for sure, so take this with as many grains of salt as you want)
You could try this, it’s worked wonders for me when nothing else seems to work. It doesn’t fix anything but it does tell you how to fix your registry etc. to great detail.
Here you go. I Googled for perfectnav.
My guess is you have a BHO (Browser Help Object) stuck in your craw. Try BHO Demon. Adaware’s current version does not detect these.
To be more clear - the link I gave includes instructions on how to fix your problem.
That’s pretty much what the site I suggested says if PerfectNav is the culprit here…
Muad’Dib, have you tried disabling IE’s “Friendly HTTP error messages”? Click Tools, then Options, then Advanced. Scroll down a bit and there’s an option labelled “Show friendly HTTP error messages”. It might be that some scumware has modified what IE uses for its friendly error messages?
Max.