What the hell is happening with my Google searches?

Factual Questions
1

Is this the next horrible way of thrusting ads down our throats, or was it a blip?

Yesterday, when I was typing in search words or phrases in Google, I would receive a list of links, as usual. For instance, I wanted to find out more about “Quiet Rock”, a sound-deadening drywall. I clicked on the first link, which was an HGTV link. The address window would briefly show the HGTV link, but I would be taken to a page showing a list of retailers dealing in building materials. The address window at that point said something like “Lycos Search something”.

The same thing happened when I was looking for a recipe. I was taken to pages marketing stuff at me, cooking stuff, even porn! I tried clicking on other links to find the subject in question, but they took me to other pages of marketing links and assorted garbage.

What hath God wrought now? It’s not happening today.

2

Sounds like a typical search engine hijacker. You need to run a spyware/malware scanner or if you have one operating at startup, maybe it removed it.

3

Sorry to be a nooge, but have you checked out the recommendations in this thread?

Also see Hijack This and post your log to the Tech Guy Forums (not that this forum right here isn’t any good - those folks are just gooder.)

4

Yah! I’m very unsophisticated about computers, so it didn’t even occur to me that this would be a pre-covered subject. I thought this was going to be the Next Big Thing in torturing us with ads against our will, like when popups first started a few years ago. If that had turned out to be the case, I was going to hurl our computer into the garbage. Sorry for not checking first.

I note that this took place on our laptop, and not on our Mac.