DF-21 Forums

[Casey Neumiller]

Something installed itself on my computer that I've been unable to find...and it affects IE. Basically, the most annoying symptom is that it locks me out of being able to change my homepage. It was set to mysearchnow.com but I managed to reset it to its default (www.medion.com on this computer). However, I'd like to change it back to what *I* want it to do. Suggestions?

[Nottheking]

I wouldn't really have a clue exactly what the program caususing it is, but I'm fairly certain that it is what might classify as a trojan horse, even if it is a "legal" one, like those programs that would constantly open pop-up ads even after you left the site, and if I remember, closed IE.

If you happen to have an NT-based OS (such as 2000 or XP, I don't don't personally know if 4 has it), open the task manager, and examine all of the items under the "processes" tab. If you can figure out which one of the running processes is messing with your settings, you can end it there, and then search your hard drive for it, and delete it.

That above reminds me of how my local grade school's tecyhnology administrator had the brilliance to infect the entire network with MSBlast, and swamped the whole thing as they used an automated program to remove it (slowing the network for over 72 hours), while my brother manually cleaned it off of a computer in roughly 15 seconds, so that he could use it.

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Wake up, George Lucas... The Matrix has you..

[Mattias Welander]

You've been infected with adware. It's extremely annoying, probably illegal, and problem much more dangerous than virus today. The particular adware you're infected with is fortunately rather benign.

Nottheking's advice about using the task manager to find the adware will most likely fail, since the adware is created in the form of a IE COM plugin, and thus is executed inside the IEXPLORE.EXE process.

The first thing you need to do is to find one or more good anti-adware/spyware programs, like Ad-Aware or Trojan Remover. It's worth noting that they are not 100% effective, though, which is why I usually recommend people to run at least two of them in parallell.

The second thing you need to do, once the adware is gone, is to secure your computer from future infections. This includes teaching the users to not manually install adware on the system (believe it or not - in 95% of the cases, this is how the system gets infected), setting up a proper firewall, and upgrading the system components to increase security. If you're running Windows XP, I strongly urge you to upgrade to SP2 as soon as it's out, since it will contain additional system components that will agressively defeat this kind of infection. If you're running Windows 9x, you really must upgrade to a real OS, or you will never get any true protection.

[Casey Neumiller]

All right, thanks. I've been using Spyware Search and Destroy, and it's been doing a pretty good job, but I'll look up the programs you mentioned, as well.

[Darth Oosha]

[quote="Casey Neumiller"]All right, thanks. I've been using Spyware Search and Destroy, and it's been doing a pretty good job, but I'll look up the programs you mentioned, as well.[/quote]

I thought that was called Spyboy S & D.

[japh]

You could use Mozilla or Firebird instead.

http://www.mozilla.org/

[Mattias Welander]

If you're a masochist, yes.

[DarthDoctor]

***I actually do not prefer those, and think that any use would serve only to frustrate the user***


I've never used Mozilla, but I've heard good things about it...

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"At least, I think it was primitive DD that was the source of the bug" - Nottheking

[Darth Oosha]

Heh, WannaBe/iCab combination here. Actually, I've been having to use IE a lot, especially since I started school, but I always do searches in WannaBe.