When I was using Freewwweb free ISP, they put their name at the top of my browser window, in the title area.
They went out of business, and I have a paid service now, but the window title still says, now for instance
“Straight Dope Message Board - Post New Thread - Microsoft Internet Explorer provided by freewwweb”
(And if it’s too technical for this forum, can you suggest another board that handles these sorts of questions?)
Yep, we here are too dumb to handle something like that. Maybe try one of those slick city folk web message boards.
The following may cause your computer to work improperly. Always backup your system before editing your registry. I take no responsibility for any bad effects
Click on Start then run and type in Regedit then hit enter.
Then click on Edit Then Find and enter in Freewwweb and edit the keys that come up making them blank
MannyL - Thanks. I tried your advice but it says “Regedit not found”.
(k2dave - I put in that parenthetical comment because there seems to be little technical stuff here. I’ve forgotten where to get it, or I would have gone there first. But thanks for not helping.)
DISCLAIMER: I am not a computer person. I have an antique Acer with Win95 and IE5 and a 486 processor and a 14.4 modem. So you know where I’m coming from. But I’ve done my share of arm-wrestling with Internet Explorer.
I am 75% certain that what you need to do is either repair or reinstall Internet Explorer. (This advice is for IE5.) I’m assuming you have it on a CD somewhere, provided by your new ISP? Don’t waste your time with the FreeWeb one, obviously.
First try repairing Internet Explorer. Click on Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, scroll down to Microsoft Internet Explorer, click on it, it’ll prompt you “Repair Internet Explorer”. Do that. It can’t hurt and it might help.
If this doesn’t help, you can try reinstalling IE5.
To do this, you first need to uninstall it (don’t ask :rolleyes: ). Click on Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, scroll down to Microsoft Internet Explorer, click, Add/Remove, it’ll prompt you to Uninstall. Try that.
HOWEVER, before you try this, make sure you have your Internet Favorites (bookmarks) saved on a separate disk somewhere, and also your e-mail address book, printed out if not saved on a disk. Also any off-line Web pages you may have saved.
I would strongly advise you not to fool around with RegEdit unless you really, really know what you’re doing.
You can do a Find to look for an ad banner .gif, although sometimes simply deleting that won’t work, and it sometimes makes it worse, because it leaves all kinds of .dll and .ini and .exe files laying around afterwards, that can really mess with your computer’s head.
What kind of computer do you have? If you’re using most versions of Windows you should have a copy of Regedit. Click on Start, then Find, then type in regedit.exe. Then be extremely careful, like MannyL said.
I just went back and reread your OP–is it really a whole big ad banner, flashing and wiggling? Because my top line says, “Straight Dope Message Board - Reply to Topic - Microsoft Internet Explorer”, too. Is that all it is? 'Cause that’s normal, although I don’t know why it would still say “Freeweb”, too. But if the “Freeweb” isn’t hurting anything…
I have Juno, and the CD they sent me installs IE5 automatically, when you install Juno. Presumably Freeweb also sent you a CD with IE5 on it, so you just need to take their version off your computer, which says “Freeweb” all over it, and put your new ISP’s version on.
Internet Explorer doesn’t like to reinstall itself over itself, unlike some software, which is why you have to uninstall it, first.
And the Juno Home Page (which is the default home page) always says “Welcome to Juno - Microsoft Internet Explorer” up at the top. This is just part of Bill Gates’ strategy for world domination.
Thanks. I did try the find, but nothing turned up.
And I already reinstalled the browser once, from a Microsoft original CD, and that didn’t help.
But now that I think of it, the install screen did ask if I wanted an older module to overwrite a newer one it found. The installer discouraged me from doing that, so I kept the newer module.
But I’m thinking now that’s probably exactly where freewwweb made it’s changes.
So I’ll try that tomorrow.
Thanks for the advice.
I did a search on my system CD and it was there, but not installed. I really am not up to editing a system file, though. I make so many typos just with notepad.
Just having some fun at your expense - sorry :o . But try cnet, I think they did an article on how to get rid of ‘mircosoft internet explorer provided by america online’ which probally would be the same as your’s but with freewwweb. in gereral, search to get rid of aol message.
Thanks. I got it to work by uninstalling and reinstalling and making it overwrite any newer files.
Why these guys have to do so much advertising, I’ll never figure out. They already had an icon on my desktop, one on my Start bar, one on my Programs list, one on my “launch pad”, one in my “tray”, a splash window, and a home page with their name on it 5 places.
Not that I minded one more, but did it have to be non-removeable? Well at least it’s gone now.
I’m pretty sure that microsoft requires that third-party companies, who distribute the IE program, Put that disclamer on the top of the browser window. I think It’s because microsoft has less control over what features will install with the program. That way if there’s a bug in the program, you can easily see who’s responsible.
Microsoft likes to shift tech support options to other companies.
Do you have a brand-name computer? You’ll find microsoft won’t even provide support for WINDOWS if it came installed on your machine. But I digress…
Get Netscape 5 or better (Higher numbers are slower usually) from download.com, install, viola! no banner. Also, use import bookmarks to get your IE ones.
No such animal as Netscape 5; they jumped from 4.7 to 6.0.
Netscape 4.7 is the last release of the “old code” which can probably be traced back to version 1.0 (or possibly even NCSA Mosaic). 6.0 is a complete rewrite, and is still quite buggy and I wouldn’t recommend it. 4.7 has no provision to import bookmarks from IE, you need to use a third party utility to do that. I don’t know about 6.0.
I’m also not so sure about installing a viola, you might want to start with a violin and work your way up from there…