# Hijacker driving me nuts! please help
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 23, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891 "2004-06-23T22:26:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891/1 "2004-06-23T22:26:14Z")
I have adaware…spybot.search and destroy as well as Pest Patrol…and zone alarm.
In spite of the above, whenever I go to my main page, which is [yahoo.com](http://yahoo.com), about: blank pops up as the address and when I substitute [yahoo.com](http://yahoo.com) to get my main page, yahoo main page appears.
But as soon as I try to click on anything on the main page, I immediately get a
screen that says DNS error…and in big red letters PAGE NOT FOUND and the subsequent info that the page you requested is not online. This could be for a variety of reasons, including:
1. you follwed a broken or out-of-date link
2. you entered the URL for the page incorrectly.
3. the site no longer exists.
GO BACK
This Page not Found comes wherever on the yahoo page I click…and no matter how many times I make [yahoo.com](http://yahoo.com) as my start page…about: blank substitutes itself immediately.
I have no pests captured by any of the security items I listed above.
If you can, please help me to get rid of the highjacker about:blank and resolve this problem for me.
Thanks in advance.
---
### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2004, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891/2 "2004-06-23T22:36:33Z")
> [@MadSam](#):
>
> I have adaware…spybot.search and destroy as well as Pest Patrol…and zone alarm.
>
> In spite of the above, whenever I go to my main page, which is [yahoo.com](http://yahoo.com), about: blank pops up as the address and when I substitute [yahoo.com](http://yahoo.com) to get my main page, yahoo main page appears.
>
> But as soon as I try to click on anything on the main page, I immediately get a
>
> screen that says DNS error…and in big red letters PAGE NOT FOUND and the subsequent info that the page you requested is not online. This could be for a variety of reasons, including:
>
> 1. you follwed a broken or out-of-date link
> 2. you entered the URL for the page incorrectly.
> 3. the site no longer exists.
> GO BACK
>
> This Page not Found comes wherever on the yahoo page I click…and no matter how many times I make [yahoo.com](http://yahoo.com) as my start page…about: blank substitutes itself immediately.
>
> I have no pests captured by any of the security items I listed above.
>
> If you can, please help me to get rid of the highjacker about:blank and resolve this problem for me.
> Thanks in advance.
I had a similar but not identical problem, which was the product of one of the bastard variants of Cool Web Search. It may be worth your while to go to the Merijn website and download CWShredder.exe – if someone has the site bookmarked and can provide a link, I’d be grateful. This may be the cause of your problem, or it may be a completely different hijacker. But it only takes a minute or so to locate, download, and run it – if you can get to Google or another search engine, look for cwshredder.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2004, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891/3 "2004-06-23T22:46:32Z")
[The Merijn site](http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html).
---
### Author:  [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891/4 "2004-06-23T23:08:09Z")
Thanks for your support. Downloaded your suggestion and followed directions but to no avail.
When I click on my gold star on my bottom task bar which gives me all my fovorites including straight dope, the offensive red lettered blocker does NOT appear and everything runs smoothly. Could it be a malfunction of yahoo itself? :
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2004, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891/5 "2004-06-23T23:42:52Z")
It sounds a lot like the dreaded about:blank variant of CoolWebSearch. CWShredder does not fix this (and probably won’t for awhile: Merijn has said his programming skills aren’t up to it).
You need to download and run [Hijackthis](http://s89223352.onlinehome.us/mirror/hjt/). Save the log, and then post it at [http://forums.spywareinfo.com](http://forums.spywareinfo.com). Someone will eventually work with you to fix the issue and it will take several iterations.
---
### Author:  [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijacker-driving-me-nuts-please-help/251891/6 "2004-06-24T21:26:08Z")
To all responders: Thanks for your suggestions.