Help...

[ximeria]

A friend of mine's having a little problem -- and I THINK I've seen someone on my friendslist post a link to a website with a solution.

His IE keeps redirecting him to a strange search page when he launches it and the same happens when he tries HTTP downloads. He's tried antivirus and ad-aware, but neither comes up with anything.

Anyone?

Bueller?

Comments

[sonneta.livejournal.com]

Has he tried Highjack This? It's a program that traces and destroys spyware, which sounds like your friend's problem. You can find it here: http://tomcoyote.com/hjt/

HJT helped me out of a similar problem when nothing else I tried (norton, etc) did.

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

Thank you ^_^
I've sent him the URL -- so I hope he can figure out the problem

[sonneta.livejournal.com]

You said he has problems downloading... I'm trying to remember when I had my problem, I had a similar issue... tell him to try starting it up in safe mode and then dl the software I recommended... also, if he googles Hijack This, there are several helpful websites for figuring out how to translate its weird technobabble.

*still trying to find the site that helped me out so much when I couldn't dl and my homepage was messed up*

[sonneta.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be spamming you with comments- but I think I may have discovered an easier method for your friend.

Shut down computer, restart under safe mode (repeatedly press F8 (until options appear) before loading screen appears, select safe mode).

Go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ and perform their free online scan, which will hopefully nail the stupid spyware.

Hopefully one of the proposed methods will do some good... if not, let me know, I can try to do some more digging...

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

Hehehe, I'll see what this might do for him *g*

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

hehe, I don't think the techno babble will be a problem, the guy's more than good with computers as it is *g*

But thanks again -- we'll see what he makes of it.

[timian.livejournal.com]

I suggest Spy Sweeper, which you can download off Download.com. It's payware, but there is a free trial. It catches most everything, I think.

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

I'm sending him that as well -- I just hope he CAN download it -- since it's redirecting him when he tries HTTP downloads...

But thank you very much ^_^

Yet another to try

[aostara.livejournal.com]

Another good freebie to find trojans and such is "Ad Aware" from Lavasoft.

Re: Yet another to try

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

He tried that already *g* -- antivirus and Ad-aware both came up without result.

I just recall someone mentioning a webpage where one could scan for specifically some bug that infected IE and made it redirect to some odd search engine. Beats me if I can remember where that page was *g* But yes, Ad-aware is definitely one of the better programs -- scary how much crap it can find on your computer.