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For the last couple days I've encountered a problem on my computer, that I can't solve. And don't laugh, it's not funny. When clicking on a link on a website, it brings up a porn page, then prompts me to download something. It doesn't let me click out of it, but I have to disconnect to get out. But even without downloading anything, it changes my homepage to something else. I have cleared all internet files, history and cookies, but it did it again, same thing on a different website. It's not related to whatever site or link I'm on, because when I'm going back to the same place it it works fine. Sooo, it must be something sitting in my computer, and I can't have that, because I have two children using it. Please tell me where to find and how to eliminate this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Lotti
posted
We had the same problem, we deleted all the temporary internet files, and cookies. We ran adaware and it kept coming back. We then installed the google toolbar which has a pop-up blocker on it and it doesn't mess up other things. Seems to work!
-------------------- Vicki Powell Here's Your Sign 16048 Hwy 96 Ordway, CO 81063 VickiPowell@centurytel.net www.heresyoursign.biz Posts: 43 | From: Ordway, CO | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lottie... The Porn thing crashed my computer last week. It contained a worm. It screwed up everything. Complete with its own toolbar, it was accidentally installed from a pop-up that my kid's friend clicked on. It kept reinstalling iself every time I deleted it....what a nightmare. Good luck...it was harder to get rid of than VD. Love- JILL (not that I've had VD...just thought it was a good comparison due to the porno)
-------------------- That is like a Mr. Potato Head with all the pieces in the wrong place. -Russ McMullin Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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Must be a Freudian hyperlink LOL jes' kidding...
Try looking in your Task Manager- there may be a program runnning in the background that waits 'til you're online then redirects you...Kinda like the blaster virus did, I think.
-------------------- Steve Burke Cascades Inc NS Canada
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving isn't for you Posts: 359 | From: NS Canada | Registered: Jan 2002
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I got the same type of thing just last night from a link I got from google. I was looking into downloading a shareware trial program & searched for the software on google. I saw a link in the top ten that seemed like it had the software but when I clicked it I got porn. as fast as I could close out of my browser, new pop-up porn pics would appear. When I restarted the computer & went back online, I found that this had in-fact Hi-jacked my homepage, but not with the porn, with some "orbit something" or "something orbit" that was a search engine I think (not the orbitz travel guys) I set letterville back as my homepage & have not had any more trouble, but I think I will check out spybot too.
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If you bought your computer from Dell, don't install Spybot or similar programs without contacting them first. In the case of Dell, it nullifies your warranty.
-------------------- Terry Baird Baird Signs 3484 West Lake Rd. Canandaigua, NY 14424 Posts: 790 | From: Canandaigua, New York | Registered: Dec 2002
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You could also try going to Start/Run and typing in MSCONFIG, then under the startup tab looking for anything with a name similar to the problem script or program and unchecking it. Failing that go to the registry and search. Disclaimer: DO NOT mess with your registry unless you understand the consequences. 9/10 of the time you can kill it with msconfig from my experience. HTH, David
-------------------- David Fisher D.A. & P.M. Fisher Services Brisbane Australia da_pmf@yahoo.com Trying out a new tag: "Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth Peter Ustinov Posts: 1450 | From: Brisbane Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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Hi Dave... I have a Gateway & that is what the tech told me to do...he said it usually works. But the Porno kept coming back....just like a bad rash. He said it installs a lot of spyware, whatever that is. I had to delete everything from my hard drive and start from Win95 the go up...and now I have no drivers for my soundcard or printer...bummer. Good Luck Lottie! Love- JILL
-------------------- That is like a Mr. Potato Head with all the pieces in the wrong place. -Russ McMullin Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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using a pop-up stopper helps sometimes since you have a chance to stop all the barrage of pop-ups some website redirects can do. look into the free version of Panicware Pop Up Stopper. www.panicware.com
ouch! that sounds like crummy advice from Gateway to reformat to Win 95 and start over. those drivers may be very difficult to come by.
-------------------- Scott Pagan Admark Graphic Systems Admark Motorsports Graphics 9700 Metromont Ind Blvd Charlotte, NC 28269 www.admarkgraphics.com Posts: 325 | From: Charlotte, NC | Registered: Nov 2001
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Hi Mike, We receive Dell support alerts when ever the company thinks that a problem is serious enough to warrant it. Three days ago, we received a notice about the Spyware problems that their support staff has been dealing with. It went into depth about the problem and possible solutions. It said that although the programs have been effective, they nullify many software company warranties and may nullify the Dell warranty. I usually delete these messages after reading them, but I'll see if I can find it. If I'm wrong, please advise because I'd love to lose some of these damn repetitive pop ups. I don't need Viagra, a bigger Johnson or larger breasts (I'm already up to a c-cup).
-------------------- Terry Baird Baird Signs 3484 West Lake Rd. Canandaigua, NY 14424 Posts: 790 | From: Canandaigua, New York | Registered: Dec 2002
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I ran the Spybot program last night and it found a long list of spyware on my computer. I had it destroyed; will find out in the future if it did any damage. It also kicked Hotbar out of my computer, which was installed about a year ago("Mooom, I need it, it has cooool smileys, can we install it, huh, pleeeease...." ) To my surprise, I found out that the "clear cookies" and the "clear files" button in Internet Options had NOT cleared out the cookies and files. I did this manually (Local Disk (C:)- Documents and Settings - Cookies)My daughter alone had just under a thousand cookies on her account. I also changed my options to "Prompt" before setting any cookies. Does any of you realise how much time we used to have to do other things BC (before computers)
I just recently had a similar problem. A program from a site called the sten.com kept setting itself as my homepage everytime I turned the computer on. I would reset it to letterville, but it redid itself at every on/off opportunity. I looked everywhere and could not find it to delete it. Also it installed 3 porn pages in my favorites list. I ran adaware twice, since I already had that installed, but it didn't stop it. Finally after reading this thread I tried Spybot, and it appears to have stopped it. It found 53 spyware things, that ad aware didn't get.
Thanks for bringing this up.........
-------------------- Jeff Ogden 8727 NE 68 Terr. Gainesville FL, 32609 Posts: 2138 | From: 8827 NE 68 Terr Gainesville Fl 32609 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I discovered that on my home system, although I fixed the home page thing, I now get pop-ups every 15 minutes just hanging out in letterville. I've never had that type of pop-up before, just ones when i'm searching out sites for various info, U would get to ones that fund themselves by allowing a pop-up which I close, get on with my search & never worry so much about. In fact I wondered why so many people cared about pop-ups enough to get pop-up-stoppers etc.... well now I know why, trying to have a casual stroll down the streets of letterville with all these unscrupulous vendors hawking their wares shoving red-on-yellow brush-script-caps panels in my face... (gosh darn, jimminey cripes, may they rot in heck)
... so I downloaded spybot & found 24 intrusions. it "fixed" them all, but after restarting I checked again & 2 came back. Of the 2 that it didn't fix, one is "wildtangent" & one is "Xuipter OrbitExplorer" (the one that took over my home page last week, & is probably the current pop-up culprit.
I tried again to fix with Spybot, & I also went to run-msconfig & found 2 entries in the startup list with the nam "orbit" in the path. I turned those off, restarted... still showing up as intruders in spybot, but unfixable.
The path shown in the startup list showed these "orbit" files were in programs, so I checked out add-remove programs in the control panel, but it was not listed there, I did find it under program files from windows explorer & deleted it from there...
but the damn (oops, darn) things are still showing up when I run spybot... but still unfixable!
I downloaded free trial of the panicpopup thingy someone mentioned above that is supposed to be superior, but I don't see how to use it to "scan" for existing "spys"... it seems to have all sorts of settings for how it will respond when a pop-up occurs... but does anyone know how it (OR ANYTHING ELSE) may help deal with these 2 stubborn spies?
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OOPS... looks like "PESTPATROL" was the one that was supposedly superior... I went looking for the link & followed a different one... I'll try pestpatrol when i get home.
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Doug, the panicware pop-up stopper only keeps the pop-ups from interrupting your web browsing. if it's on, it should stop the browser re-direct that essentially allows a HTML code to redirect you to an auto download/install for these malicious buggers. if you stop the reidrect, you may not get the registry bugs. of cource it doesn't help if you download something your not very sure of (ie: anything off the P2P nets music, video, programs). in those instances, use the sniffer/removal programs.
the ad-aware and spybot are spyware "sniffers" that will scan your harddrive to look for (known) problems and report them. these need updating just like your anti-virus. (which brings up why this stuff doesn't get caught by the anti-virus in the first place?)
a good way to tell if you have some of these are: - if your web homepage has been changed - if search engines return listing from very few sources - if pop-up become so repetitive you can not stop the chain reactions - any typed in URL get a quick re-direct to something you didn't want.
i'll have to look into the other program you mentioned, since i've not seen it before.
-------------------- Scott Pagan Admark Graphic Systems Admark Motorsports Graphics 9700 Metromont Ind Blvd Charlotte, NC 28269 www.admarkgraphics.com Posts: 325 | From: Charlotte, NC | Registered: Nov 2001
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