I have a nasty bit of spyware on Internet Explorer that redirects to ads234.com before going to the site I want to go to. I've read several very complicated ways to delete this sophisticated and tricky spyware, most of which involve doing changes to the registry, but I am not proficient enough to feel comfortable doing that.

Seems to me that this type of activity is illegal in some way. I did not consciously download this software, nor was I ever asked if it was OK to download it. It just appeared in early July, and it radically slows the use of the internet

To sidestep the problem I have switched to the Firefox browser, but I would really like to get this bugger off my system. Can anyone help?

First - Well done on switching to Firefox. It's a better browser and doesn't have the security holes of IE.

Anyway, back to the subject in hand. Best spy removal programs out there at the moment are :

Ad-Aware - www.lavasoftusa.com
Spyware: Search & Destroy - http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

Download both of them (for Ad-Aware you'll want the personal/free version). Also make sure you update them regularly using their built in update procedures. This will make sure you don't miss any of the newer spyware programs.

There is also a web page that also tells you how to delete specific spyware manually. But I can't remember it! I'll post it here later if I remember it.

Ad-Aware and Spyware S&D should be more than enough though.