What evilness has infected my computer?

Okay, something strange has happened to Internet Explorer. The home page has been set to some page I’ve never been to, and a link to another page I’ve never visited has been added to the Favorites. After I delete the link and change the home page, they change back again! Something has taken over my computer! What is this? How do I fix it?

Probably some form of spyware. Get Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy - that should get rid of it.

When my homepage was being hijacked I fixed it with a free program called CWShredder.

Scumware.com article on CoolWeb Shredder

Main page of merijn.org, home of CWShredder

Some related SDMB threads:

changing my IE start page

My IE homepage keeps resetting. Help!

Use the links RandomLetters provided; they’re also free.

Thanks, I used Adware and Spyware and one of them seemed to catch it after about 3 scans. The only lingering problem is that if I want to type a site address in the address bar, I need to ad the “http://” prefix. I.e., typing www.straightdope.com won’t work, I need to type http://www.straightdope.com. Anyone know how to fix this?

Just type straightdope in the address bar, then hold down the **ctrl ** key and hit the enter key. Voila, instant url!

As long as it’s a .com domain…
And this isn’t the way it worked before…
But thanks for the info…

Try reinstalling IE6.

No, that didn’t change anything.