little help please

[DiegoLeeRoth]

I can't get into anything on the internet anymore. Links and search links lead to random search engines. I've done full searches using McAffee and Lavasoft AdAware and nothing turned up. Anyone know what is going on here?

 

[blut wump]

Get Firefox from here. http://www.mozilla.com . Use another machine and a CD writer or flash pen if needs be.

Once you've done that, look into bolstering your security with a firewall, copy of Linux or a Mac and learn never to click spurious links and never to run programs from sites you lack total confidence in. Your machine might be polluted to the extent that you need to reformat and reinstall everything.

 

[digger]

I can't get into anything on the internet anymore. Links and search links lead to random search engines. I've done full searches using McAffee and Lavasoft AdAware and nothing turned up. Anyone know what is going on here?

You've got a classic case of spyware. AdAware alone can't find all spyware, and Firefox alone isn't the answer, either -- you shouldn't trust that machine until you clean it up.

The gold standard for fixing spyware problems is a system called "Hijack This" which is supported by volunteers on line -- you have to run their program to get a complete report of what's going on, and once you have that, the volunteers will walk you through a customized recovery process step-by-step. You have to be willing to follow their instructions. They're donating their time, so if you jerk them around they'll just leave you to stew in your own juice.

Plan B is to wipe your machine and start over.

The difference between the HijackThis team and CompUSA is that CompUSA can't be bothered to pick through all your programs and clean up by hand, so they'll tell you there's nothing to be done and that your ONLY choice is to wipe out your disk. That's not true; if they were honest they'd just admit that it's not cost-effective for them to offer that service.

 

[blut wump]

Thanks for that info, Digger.

Here's a link to a HijackThis descripton including a tutorial.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html