My PC is infected. Internet Explorer likes to direct me to other sites when I google search and then click on just about any result.
For example clicking here takes me here , among other sites at random.
Firefox works fine. How do I fix this shit?
A good free popular one would be
However, with IE hijacks you might need something a little more involved.
Something along the lines of Hijack This
Which is a little more involved but overall probably a little more powerful.
AdAware has a new version out for Windows XP. Run both AdAware and Spybot for a pretty thorough cleaning.
Take some time to explore Spybot Search & Destroy thoroughly, there are lots of useful tools there above the ability to locate and remove spyware in your system.
In your particular case there is a tool to lock the homepage of IE to prevent just such a problem as you are experiencing.
It is also well worthwhile to download spybot s&d’s hosts file, also to run the Immunise function, both help to prevent you being redirected to malicious sites.
Don’t be too alarmed by the warnings about using the advanced mode tools. You probably could damage your system with them but you would have to try very hard/be extremely unlucky.
My almost-completely-free recipe for success is CCleaner, Spybot, AdAware, Firefox, and ZoneAlarm (all free). I’ve used this for years without a single incident. The only other program I have is Sophos for antivirus, which is not free, but I’m not sure how much that would affect the presence of the problems you’re talking about.
I use the same with the exception of Sophos, i use AVG which is free and works great. Firefox is a great brower and i have never seen it hijacked
AFter this, install a good ASW system. I find the Kaspersky suite is the best, although it’s not cheap.
I’ve tried everything (free) mentioned in this thread and I still get hijacked to other sites.
What kind of fucking morons do this to people? I’m writing this from my home (dial-up) PC that has no problems, but it’s my work laptop that was infected. Yeah, I really love to call the IT guys to do a complete analysis on my PC to find out why I’m being redirected to other sites. It’s not like I visited kiddy.porn.r.us or anything, but yeah i may have browsed a few pseudo adult sites…purely for education.
**Leaffan, ** have you tried Trend Micro’s CWShredder? It’s supposed to be good at fixing certain things that cause IE hijacks. I’ve only ever had one problem that I needed it to fix, though.
Doesn’t have to be Porn anymore. Once it was that way, but now Organized crime is getting into Spyware. Any place that sells Pop-up ads can be a source of Spyware- Snopes has had infected ads.
I am glad Ed promised us/me there’d never be any of that nonsense here. Ads, sure. But none of those dangerous pop-up and similar type ads.
Yep. Tried it and am still getting (redirected) hijacked.
How do I do the strikethrough thing?
You could try Kaspersky Anti-Virus. It’s pretty good at finding nasty stuff that’s got deep in your system.
Although it’s a commerical product, you can download a trial version which is valid for 30 days from their website.
When others have all failed I’ve had good success with Bazooka Scanner available on C|Net here.
The catch with it is that it only detects problems, it doesn’t fix them for you. It does however give you links for each problem to their site with detailed instructions on how to remove each one. Usually this involves slogging thru the registry finding and deleting keys, so its not for a newbie.
Like I said though, when all others failed its worked for me every time!
Whatever you do, DO NOT use:
DriveCleaner
MalwareStopper
SpySherriff
WinAntiVirusPro
SystemDoctor
ErrorSafe
-these are all rogue anti-malware programs - they purport to clean your PC, but are in fact infecting it.
Try installing Avast (free) and run the boot time scan.
BUT - stay by the machine while it does it, it can take up to an hour and if the machine goes to sleep you could end up reinstalling windows as I had to do with my Vista laptop.
It will quite likely isolate the file and give you the opportunity to repair/throw it in jail/delete it.
If you are familiar with what the valid Windows processes are, you can use this tutorial
How to Clean Up a Windows Spyware Infestation to do it manually using tools from Sysinternals (available for free from the Microsoft website). Use Process Explorer to find and kill processes without a company name or with a company name you don’t recognize. Use Autoruns to delete things that will run automatically at startup time, looking for blank publishers or publishers whose name you don’t recognize. Reboot and repeat as necessary.
The drawback to this manual process is that you have to knows Windows processes really well.
I found spyware doctor very good as it removed some nasties that others had missed. Unfortunately the trial free version is rather limited - you can get a decent working version free with google pack if you dont mind the google baggage
You must not have tried Hijack this because that would have solved the problem for sure. And if this truely is you work laptop get it fixed now. I work in IT and there is nothing worse then some idiot plugging in a machine that brings down the whole god damn building because of crap they have on it
I had something really nasty a while back that Adaware and Spybot couldn’t get. I had to use SUPERAntispyware.
That program rocks IMHO. It is my first line tool for virus cleanup work in my shop, its amazing how much stuff that thing finds. It is a little memory hungry for my tastes if you want to leave it in but it is a top notch cleaner.