Spyware & Browser hijacking

[P.Cakes]

Anyone have this happen to them?

It sucks and I can't seem to get rid of it. I've used Ad-Aware Se & Spybot (as recommended by the I.T. guy at my work), but my problem still exists.

As soon as I log into Windows (98), a faux webpage comes up. It has absolutely none of the normal features of a web page, like minimize, close, address bar, etc. The only way I've found to close it is to ctrl-alt-del and close it down (the only way I figured that out was to try it on every single program running until the right one closed down)

Does anybody have any advice for what I should do to try to rid this problem before I buckle under the pressure and reformat the hard drive?

Thanks.

 

[eskie]

Hi P.Cakes, try opening Control Panel ("Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs") and uninstalling any small and/or recent and/or unfamiliar programs. "Unfamiliar" is a bit of a vague term, so you will need a little computer literacy for this step.

A friend of mine had her browser hijacked, and the above step worked for her PC. Good luck.

 

[Phoenix]

You may have a default web page.

First, Alt+F4 should close any windows based program.

Next, go to Tools in your Internet Exploer and click internet option.

The first tab, General for Home Page, click Use Blank.

 

[dbrw42]

Another thing to try is take the name of the web page and Google it. This may bring up removal instructions. I had a spyware on my computer that Spybot could only find, not kill. This got me the instructions needed to get rid of it.

 

[P.Cakes]

Thanks eskie - there is one program that Windows will not let me delete, I'll try uninstalling it. I've done a lot of general snooping on my computer, and I've found a few files with similarly suspicious dates that I'm trying to get rid of.

Phoenix - use:blank was actually my home page and it would try to bring it up, then transfer to some odd "search page". The screen that comes up when I start Windows is completely different from that search page (which BTW tries to come up as I'm snooping in "My Computer"). I say "tries" because I currently have all content passworded. Yeah. it's annoying, but it beats having these pages pop up all the time.

dbrw42 - Google. . . . never thought of that. Not to sure of the site name, though, because that never appears on the screen. All the gray area at the top of the screen shows up completely devoid of any information. We'll see what I can find.

 

[Karma]

Hey Meth, the link does not work

 

[magician]

Try the following program to clean out the spyware on your computer. Adware and Spybot do not clear out everything. You need a combination of these spyware remover to do the trick.

SpywareBlaster

Don't forget to run the updates on all of these spyware remover as well. Good luck.

 

[InI]

If there is no toolbar on the top of the window then hit <F11> and it should bring it up.

 

[P.Cakes]

Hijack This!!!

IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for all the responses. With the preventativie measures I now have in place, this crap shouldn't happen again (I hope).

 

[P.Cakes]

Oops. That should have read "preventative"