Internet Explorer Help: Getting the wrong website!

Factual Questions
1

I’ve poked around through the message archive, tried the Microsoft “Knowledge Database” and even tried googling, but so far have not found the answer, so I thought I’d try here:

For the past month or so, Internet Explorer has been seemingly misdirecting itself. When I either type in a URL, or go through a bookmark, or whatever it will have the same URL in the address bar, but the page displayed will be another website, but always one that I’ve visited before. For example, say I type in “www.straightdope.com”, occassionally it will go to “www.cnn.com” but still have the straightdope.com URL in the address bar. Another thing it might do is, say I’m already browsing this message board and click on a thread; explorer will then proceed to find that thread on some other website. This problem will go on for about three to five minutes, making web browsing impossible, and then seemingly fix itself like nothing was wrong. This will typically happen several times a day. I assume that I’ve got some kind of corrupted something or other, but not the faintest clue what or how to fix it.

Some relevant info about the computer:
Windows XP
Internet Explorer 6
I’m connected through a cable modem (Cox Cable is the provider)
I regularly update “critical update” stuff from Microsoft.
I use “Trend PC-cillin” as my anti-virus software, and have recently completely scanned for virii with nothing coming up.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

2

I can’t say I’m certain, but it sounds a bit like you’ve inadvertently installed some kind of ad/spy type program. Try installing AdAware. It did wonders for me.

Apart from that, I haven’t the foggiest.

3

Try clearing your cache and history

IE Menu->Tools->Internet Options->General Tab.

Select the delete files option under “Temporary Internet Files”
and clear history under History then apply & okay.

I occasionally have a similar problem & this clears it up.

4

If it is a corruption, you can try repairing IE. Go to your control panel, double click add/remove programs. Scroll through the list and look for the Internet Explorer listing, select it and click the add/remove program button. This will pop a dialog box with options to add a component, repair IE or restore the previous Windows configuration. Select the repair radio button and click ‘OK’. If that doesn’t work you may have somehow gotten some spyware/scumware installed. You can download Ad-Aware to get rid of it. If that fails to correct it you may have a virus.

Hope this helps.

-Pebs