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Gojira

1414th Post

Red Carpet Executive Member

"minor IE technical question" , posted Sun 16 May 15:04

I had a stupid ad/spyware barrage yesterday and managed to eliminate them all, but one thing I still need to do is change my default homepage back to what it was. Changing it under Internet Options is a temporary fix, but whenever I restart my computer the page is set back to some stupid web search crap. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Damn E3, making me visit sites that do this crap to me

Replies:

Undead Fred

1546th Post

Red Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member

"Re(1):minor IE technical question" , posted Sun 16 May 16:04

quote:
I had a stupid ad/spyware barrage yesterday and managed to eliminate them all, but one thing I still need to do is change my default homepage back to what it was. Changing it under Internet Options is a temporary fix, but whenever I restart my computer the page is set back to some stupid web search crap. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Damn E3, making me visit sites that do this crap to me

I've got no idea... The only trick I had up my sleeve was that little "re-set defaults" button in the IE preferences, but I'm wondering if you've still got spyware if it's still resetting your home page?

If you find out where to change these things manually without having to just erase it and re-install, let me know. I've been wanting to erase this "provided by America Online" thing that's been tattooed on my IE windows since AOL was installed... They're by no means providing my IE windows for me, nor are they providing the connection I use 95% of the time I'm online, so I want it off of there. Plus, it's just irritating seeing it up there regardless. It's not a graphic or anything, it's just extra text after the "Microsoft Internet Explorer" in my IE windows.

BLAGGO

Spoon

352th Post

Silver Customer

"Re(1):minor IE technical question" , posted Sun 16 May 16:06

quote:
I had a stupid ad/spyware barrage yesterday and managed to eliminate them all, but one thing I still need to do is change my default homepage back to what it was. Changing it under Internet Options is a temporary fix, but whenever I restart my computer the page is set back to some stupid web search crap. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Damn E3, making me visit sites that do this crap to me

Download Ad-Aware and do a full scan with all other applications closed.

Then open an IE window (it'll probably bring you back to that annoying ad site), and do another full scan with Ad-Aware with the IE window open.

After that's done, then change your default home page back to whatever it was.

That usually does it.

VManOfMana

421th Post

Gold Customer

"Re(2):minor IE technical question" , posted Sun 16 May 17:10

What Spoon said is a good suggestion. The fact that you are still getting your homepage reset means that there is still spyware on your computer.

After you are done with removing the spyware, I really recommend you switching browsers. I use Mozilla myself, but for just browsing I think Firefox is better suited.

Jabel D. Morales - VMan of Mana.
http://vman.animecafe.net/

"Tameraeba makeyo!"

DarkZero

776th Post

Red Carpet Regular Member+

"Re(3):minor IE technical question" , posted Sun 16 May 18:48

quote:
Download Ad-Aware and do a full scan with all other applications closed.

Then open an IE window (it'll probably bring you back to that annoying ad site), and do another full scan with Ad-Aware with the IE window open.

After that's done, then change your default home page back to whatever it was.

That usually does it.

If that still doesn't work, then you could also clean it manually. First, check your Startup folder and make sure there's nothing nasty there. Afterward, go to Run, type msconfig, go to the Startup tab, and uncheck anything that sounds unpleasant. This can supposedly cause some problems, but my experience has been that if you don't recognize the name of the program or any of the names in its source directory, then it is probably evil.

quote:
If you find out where to change these things manually without having to just erase it and re-install, let me know. I've been wanting to erase this "provided by America Online" thing that's been tattooed on my IE windows since AOL was installed... They're by no means providing my IE windows for me, nor are they providing the connection I use 95% of the time I'm online, so I want it off of there. Plus, it's just irritating seeing it up there regardless. It's not a graphic or anything, it's just extra text after the "Microsoft Internet Explorer" in my IE windows.

Way back when, I used a program called "X-Setup" to change my IE title bar, removing even the "Microsoft Internet Explorer" portion. Unfortunately, this program has since disappeared from most safe download sites. I've never tried Microsoft's TweakUI, but that might be able to do the trick, too. You can find it at Download.com.

quote:
After you are done with removing the spyware, I really recommend you switching browsers. I use Mozilla myself, but for just browsing I think Firefox is better suited.

Just to offer some variety, I'd like to toss Avant Browser, my personal choice, into the ring. It's an interface that's laid on top of the Internet Explorer core and it makes security a lot easier by making commands like turning ActiveX on and off just a couple of clicks away. It lets you disable just about anything you want (ActiveX, Scripts, Flash, Sounds, etc.) in a couple of clicks and also contains tabbed browsing and its own popup blocker. You still need to keep it patched, but it provides you a copy of IE without the same spyware hassle.

Gojira

1416th Post

Red Carpet Executive Member

"Re(4):minor IE technical question" , posted Sun 16 May 23:25

All right, I was able to shut this whole thing down thanks to your help, plus adaware, spybot, norton antivirus, regedit, msconfig, and the good old-fashioned delete button. What a mess.

Thanks to everyone for your help, and I hope to HELL this doesn't happen again.

Burning Kyo

2090th Post

Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master

"Re(5):minor IE technical question" , posted Mon 17 May 01:38

quote:
All right, I was able to shut this whole thing down thanks to your help, plus adaware, spybot, norton antivirus, regedit, msconfig, and the good old-fashioned delete button. What a mess.

Thanks to everyone for your help, and I hope to HELL this doesn't happen again.

Was it "I-Search" shit ?

I've a similar problem, if you can tell how you fix it, it'll cool.

Jigsaw
157th Post

Regular Customer

"Re(6):minor IE technical question" , posted Mon 17 May 02:11

On a slightly related note, I'd recommend switching from IE to Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) - it's a billion times better than IE in every way. I'm not sure it would help against this sort of spyware infestation, but still, you shouldn't be using IE. :P

Gojira

1419th Post

Red Carpet Executive Member

"Re(6):minor IE technical question" , posted Mon 17 May 02:29:

quote:

Was it "I-Search" shit ?

I've a similar problem, if you can tell how you fix it, it'll cool.

Well, my way of stopping it was akin to catching a mouse with plastic explosives, but here's the thing: it was an adware iefeat. These things attach themselves to IE and pretend to be "helper programs" so IE will run them every time it starts.

To get rid of them, I used this page as a guide. I followed the removal instructions and it works fine. For me, manually deleting the files and editing the registry were the important things I wasn't able to do with just the spy and adware detectors. It had created another class in the registry that I needed to clean up too.

I don't know if it's the same as what you have but if you haven't tried it I'd suggest you do.

Edit: added one thing

[this message was edited by Gojira on Mon 17 May 02:32]

Gojira

1419th Post

Red Carpet Executive Member

"Re(7):minor IE technical question" , posted Mon 17 May 02:37

quote:
On a slightly related note, I'd recommend switching from IE to Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) - it's a billion times better than IE in every way. I'm not sure it would help against this sort of spyware infestation, but still, you shouldn't be using IE. :P

As for this, I've thought about switching browsers, but IE has been fairly reliable for me despite the ad/spyware problems. Plus I'm stuck with IE whether I use it or not, so I use it. :P

Burning Kyo

2091th Post

Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master

"Re(7):minor IE technical question" , posted Mon 17 May 04:21

quote:

Well, my way of stopping it was akin to catching a mouse with plastic explosives, but here's the thing: it was an adware iefeat. These things attach themselves to IE and pretend to be "helper programs" so IE will run them every time it starts.

To get rid of them, I used this page as a guide. I followed the removal instructions and it works fine. For me, manually deleting the files and editing the registry were the important things I wasn't able to do with just the spy and adware detectors. It had created another class in the registry that I needed to clean up too.

I don't know if it's the same as what you have but if you haven't tried it I'd suggest you do.

Thank you, but it wasn't the same shit as yours.
But I've succed to fix this problem by using this : http://209.133.47.19/~merijn/files/CWShredder.exe

This freeware fix and destroy all the spy websearch shits.

[Live fast // Die young]

VManOfMana

422th Post

Gold Customer

"Re(7):minor IE technical question" , posted Mon 17 May 07:19

quote:
On a slightly related note, I'd recommend switching from IE to Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) - it's a billion times better than IE in every way. I'm not sure it would help against this sort of spyware infestation, but still, you shouldn't be using IE. :P

It does for the simple reason that most spyware/adware enter by exploiting holes in the IE engine, VBScript, and ActiveX. Since Mozilla does not support any of those things, it is invulnerable to those attacks. A lot of the attacks to Outlook Express are related to the IE engine, actually.

Having IE sutting in there is not *that* much of a problem, but using it can really increase risk.

I could argue about how Firefox provides a lot better browsing experience compared to IE, but it looks like Gojira has his mind set. I still encourage him to give it a try, though.

Jabel D. Morales - VMan of Mana.
http://vman.animecafe.net/

"Tameraeba makeyo!"