Laptop Problemzzz

[Alucard]

So I'm having a spot of bother with my laptop. I assume its some sort of spyware/adware in it it something but I dunno @@;

When I connect to the net, my pages keep getting redirected to bullshit advertising websites. I've ran spybot, adware and avg and none of them have found anything :/

Any advice~?

[mr_pikachu]

I assume you mean that any website you try to visit gets redirected... could be some corruption within the browser itself. Have you tried using a different browser to see if that helps? (Say, if you're using IE, have you tried Firefox? Or Netscape, or... something?)

If it's just the first page that gets redirected, just go to your internet options and change the startup page to, say, Google. But it doesn't sound like that's the issue, from what you said.


EDIT: If it is an issue with a specific browser, then you may be able to rectify the problem by reinstalling it. But don't bother until you've checked it out; otherwise, you may just be wasting your time.

[Alucard]

I switch between FireFox & IE for different things. Both homepages are set to about:blank but when i load up IE it directs me to some advertising b/s.

[mr_pikachu]

Okay, so... Firefox works fine, then?

If that's the case, it does seem to be a browser-specific problem. If you're sure that Firefox is working properly (you'll need it or some other browser for this next step), try uninstalling IE and then downloading it (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx) from Microsoft's website.

As long as the uninstall runs properly, that'll probably fix the problem... if it doesn't, you've got deeper issues, and the IE troubles are just a symptom. Either way, it's worth trying if you can, especially since your antivirus programs aren't picking up anything.

[.hacker]

This sounds like a spyware problem. If reinstalling IE doesn't solve it, then IE itself isn't corrupted. Typically, a corrupted IE would cause pages not to load, instead of being sent to advertising pages.

Spyware scanning programs available online for free are basically worthless. I tried Spybot when I got nailed with a horrible advertising spyware, and it found nothing.

I use a program called Spysweeper. It'll cost $30, but is a great program. When I ran it for the first time, it found the spyware. You can go to http://www.webroot.com/ to scan your computer for spyware, but you'll need to buy it to remove it. The $30 also includes one year of updates for free (can be found at common computer stores like Best Buy, Compusa, etc).

[Jeff]

You've been hijacked, I've had the same thing happen to me too, I ran AdAware, it always picked stuff up, but the problem kept coming back, so eventually I found out which program was causing it and googled it. Also, have you tried Windows Defender? I've run that and it seems to pick up some things AdAware and SpyBot miss.