browser hijacking…

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hello one and all!

help, please!!! our browser searches have been hijacked (at least, i think that’s the correct term.) we run XP pro, and use both IE (ver. 7.0.5730.11- used by my husband) and firefox (ver. 3.0.4- used by me) what’s happened is this: whenever we tried to use google or yahoo search, we would be directed to a site, or choice of sites, that had the title of what we were looking for, but would be, in actuality another site altogether. for example, i tried looking up david weber’s website (he’s a science fiction author) on yahoo search. here’s what i got:

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David Weber Homepage
David Weber Homepage. Under construction. For a list of David’s books see: Baen Books Catalog …
http://www.shopasearch.com – Cached
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shopasearch.com is definitely NOT his website. i usually have been getting links to insurance companies or shopping search sites of some sort. same problem with google, too.

the only search site that seems to work correctly is dogpile.com.

i have run norton (norton 360- 2008), and it tells me that i have no malware on my computer at all. i have run all the updates for windows that are available. i am at a loss for what to do. this is driving both of us nuts.

does anyone here have any suggestions? any programs that i should run? preferably free, as i don’t have any money to spend on software, and won’t have for quite a while.

thanks in advance for any help that you may send our way. until the next time, take care and God bless.

smiles-
ladyleadfoot!!!

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Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a rapidly rising star – try the fully functional free version (the paid version adds real-time protection and automatic updates).

A long-time favorite is Spybot – Search & Destroy, also free.

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To add to what Hans said about Malwarebytes: as soon as you’ve downloaded and installed it, go to the Update tab and click on the “Check for updates” button, to get the detections at the latest level. It will probably do a reinstall, and then you can do the Quick Scan. If your browser is so highjacked that you can’t do this, then you should try in Safe Mode (with Networking)…

If you don’t get the problem removed with this or Spybot, there are other things that could then be tried.

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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You might also check your hosts file in case Google.com and Yahoo.com are being redirected to a different server altogether. Also see whether IE and Firefox are set to use a proxy.

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