I started a thread many months ago about the fact that I couldn’t use my Explorer browser because it said that iexplorer.exe was missing. I finally got that worked out by reinstalling my system and started using Explorer as my browser.
About a month ago I got on the net and this new homepage came up. It was called search-space.com. I switched back to my homepage and before I knew it it went back to search-space.com
I finally installed a program that would discover the change and ask if I wanted to change it back, but that was a real pain.
Besides the homepage problem, I would be attacked by porn sites and other spam type sites. It was not like normal pop-ups, since it would take over whatever site I was on and then add more sites. In many cases this caused me to have to turn off my computer.
Then when I got on SDMB the scrolling was so slow that any thread with over 10 posts was not worth bothering with, unless there was nothing else to do (like watch grass grow).
Anyway, I spent about an hour today looking it up on Google (there is plenty of mention), with some success. However, all of a sudden I looked at the Netscape icon and wondered if that would be any different. Damn if all the problems aren’t completely missing on Netscape. But I’m worried because it seems like those damn worms, viruses or whatever are right next door in Explorer. So my question is should I delete everything I can find that has to do with Explorer and completely forget about using anything besides Netscape?
The probable solution is to purge all references to search-space including whatever is causing it to reload (from experiences with another program I’d guess it’s an exe file stashed somewhere, download and run the Spybot and AdAware, and download and load into your Start menu Panicware’s Pop Up Stopper.
Internet Explorer is, for several reasons, an easy target for spyware and viruses. There are steps you can take to protect IE, but the simplest solution is not to use it.
You’ve discovered Netscape. Mozilla, to many people, is preferable (http://mozilla.org).
It comes with an email client, among other things. If you just want the browser, Firebird (available from the same site) is the name they gave to just the browser.
I prefer Opera (www.opera.com). Love my Opera browser.
Anyway, IE is the favorite target. Because it is so easy, malicious hackers don’t bother to attack the other browsers. That’s a gross simplification, but true.
Pretty much any of the other browsers will block popups without additional software and protect you from hijacked home pages.
I definatly reccomend running anti-spyware programs, as ** Polycarp ** mentioned. I personally would make a switch to a different browser - Internet Explorer is lacking many of the features of modern browsers (Pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, proper .png support, ect), and IE seems to let spyware in much more easily than any modern browser. Netscape isn’t a bad choice, but I personally use Firebird- it runs a lot faster, even faster than IE on my machine. Opera is another good browser.
There is also a program called hijackthis, which removes certain pieces of software that aren’t welcome. Thing is, it doesn’t know what is welcome and what isn’t. It just shows you all the pieces, and you remove them yourself.
When it shows you, just look for any instances of search-space.com, and remove it.
Oh, and just google for hijackthis. Should be the first link.
Get yourself a Firewall, a good AntiVirus, and perhaps an internet security program.
I use Black ICE for a firewall, Norton AV for virii, and Norton Internet Security for the last thing. Set those suckers up to full (paranoid) and you’re SAFER.
