IE6 home page keeps changing ?

[noblues]

Can anyone explain why my IE6 home page keeps changing ?

Everytime I reset it within a short time its changed to an unwanted url ... also I am getting advertising pop ups constantly (despite having a pop up killer) and unrelated to the page I am looking at ....

Looks like I have some 'mole software' running somewhere on my PC ?

Anyone shed any light on this ?

[adx]

You have a browser hijacker. Download, install and then update Spybot. Search the internet for this, it's free & good. Another more technical free program is Hijackthis. These programmes will shred most hijackers. Also you could enter the url you are been redirected to into a search engine to find a specific shredder.
Adx

[bughunta]

noblues

This has been asked, and answered, several times on this forum this month alone. One of the threads is here (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=114154&highlight=home+page)
Do a search (this forum only) for 'home page' to find 2 other threads.

Many suggestions deal with how to remove the Spyware or Hijacker that is causing the problem, which is fine. However, there is a growing realisation that prevention is better than cure, and one way that will help is to ensure you have downloaded all the Critical Updates available for your PC from WindowsUpdate (http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp)

These 'Homepage-changing-bugs' are downloaded silently as you visit certain websites. I assume you do not know which site infected your PC, therefore chances of re-infection are very high, as you will probably revisit whatever site you picked it up from soon.

There is some cutting-edge information to be found on this issue here (http://www.techsupportforums.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=88)

bug
PS. Will need a 'sticky' with this info. soon...

[noblues]

Thanks bughunta & adx

Have downloaded SPYBOT and has found several suspects, seems its the ActiveX stuff that is the problem ....
Touch wood its cured ....

bughunta - I am always up to date with MS updates .... I am surprised MS are not more on the ball with stopping 'Hijackers' .... have been a lot of IE updates last few months to IE ....

Thnaks again

[noblues]

-------------------------------
I cannot recommend
http://www.techsupportforum.com/ enough .... they have been extreemly helpful (thanks bughunta for the original link) ......

using Hijackthis and Cwshredder programs and a lot of help from the above boffins I have finally deleted the relevant unwanted entries from the registry's ......

You really need to know what and not what to delete, and a mere mortal like me would be fumbling in the dark without the very helpful advice from techsupportforum.com .........a great site ....


below is my thread and the advice given, might be useful to others ....

http://www.techsupportforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11858

[tony draper]

Had this problem myself in the past, and still do occasionally, it is infuriating,not a problem for me I can restore my ISP homepage in a few seconds, but what about somebody new to computing,?they boot up log on and find the page with their webmail icons ect gone,and they havent a clue how to deal with it.
The other complaint I have is that it does not appear to be possible to delete these parasite URLs from the homepage box in internet settings, without deleting history ect.

[E-Liam]

Hi Tony,

If they are removed via HijackThis, then as far as I'm aware, there should be no problems with any of your other settings.

I'm in the process of fixing a machine on another forum, and she's got at least 3 trojans/viruses, a couple of adult diallers, CWS, a couple of dozen host file redirects, and a whole bunch of other spy/ad/malware.

The complaint.. changing homepage. :eek: :)

If you have problems, then you might want to do the following..

Please download 'Hijack This!' from here (http://www.merijn.org/files/hijackthis.zip), unzip, doubleclick HijackThis.exe, and hit "Scan". When the scan is finished, click "Save Log", and copy and paste it in a reply.

Don’t fix anything yourself yet, as a lot of the stuff on that list will be harmless or required. It'll show up stuff you probably never knew existed. :)

Cheers

Liam

[Saab Dastard]

noblues,

Have you checked the obvious - Start Menu, Programs, Startup?

It is such a simple thing it is easy to overlook. I have come across more than one piece of malware that runs from there to re-install itself.

SD