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castanza
Jul 8, 2004, 07:23 PM
Hello,
I will admit to being a novice, other than depending on our computer department to taking care of problems. I just recently received my dell home computer, and was not aware of window updates, and spyware, much less ad aware. I did have my norton anti virus 90 day trial updated, but that was it.

I made the mistake of surfing the net, and I also picked up the DSO Exploit. I found out through friends about spybot, and it got rid of a lot of the problems. Like the cool web page and so on. After that someone suggested ad aware by lavasoft for the other problem, DSO. Finally this evening I downloaded 10 critical updates from windows. Remember I am a novice, and was under the impression that what Dell sent was the most recent info.

I understand that is not the case. So I did the fix that Sudbury recommended, and I believe it is gone. I did receive the congraulatory message. I did a reboot, and still have this problem.

My only problem is, that I cannot go to the address section, and say type in :www.google.com. It takes me to the refresh page, server not found. Now I can get through Google if I use my home page, that has a Google search engine on it.

Also if I try to go to yahoo.com, instead it takes me to a web page that is yahoo.com.org.?

Does anyone know why I am having problems like this?

psi42
Jul 8, 2004, 08:33 PM
Hmm...

Yahoo.com.org? Is there such a site?

Please post the error message in its entirety... it may provide some hints...




Run windows update again. Usually you have to run it several times before all the patches get installed. Yes, it is a pain.

Be sure to continue to update your antivirus software. Set up a software firewall.

Run adaware regularly...



On a side note, I take it you're probably using Microsoft's Internet Explorer for web browsing. Internet Explorer is an inherently insecure browser that is severely lacking in useful features. It is a plague.
I would suggest you download mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org) -- it will really make things much much better for you. :)

~psi42

castanza
Jul 9, 2004, 06:12 AM
psi42, I don't exactly get an error page. I get the page like when you try to go backwards and you are in a secured buying area, and you get the message to refresh your page. This when I trying going to Google.
Like I said about Yahoo, I get the .com.org.

Before I had this problem with the virus, that my norton antivirus detected on Saturday night, it could not remove. Since that time, I have run live updts on norton, and also run scans, and nothing shows up.

I do run spybot, and ad aware, norton anti virus, each time I start up my computer. I also check for updts as well.

I will try doing the window updt scan after work, again. I didn't realize, that it may not work, after it is downloaded. That seems confusing, because it showed what it downloaded.

I have downloaded the sygate firewall, I did that on Tuesday. I need another firewall as well?

Sparda
Jul 10, 2004, 09:25 AM
Well from what youv said it sound like you have a homepage hijack and the BEST scaner/remover for home page hijacks is CWShredder which can be downloaded from here http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html hope this helps.

psi42
Jul 11, 2004, 01:44 PM
I will try doing the window updt scan after work, again. I didn't realize, that it may not work, after it is downloaded. That seems confusing, because it showed what it downloaded.

The reason for this is that due to poor OS design, many patches require others to be installed before they can be installed. Therefore, you might install all available patches, then reboot, and then find there are more waiting.

:)