about:blank

[Richards]

Okay, my computer ignorance is showing again. Today I went to go to my Hotmail account, and it came up for a second and was then replaced with some screen that said there was spyware on my computer and to "Click Here" to remove it. I'm kind of leery of doing so, because I've heard a lot of the time that's just a scam, and if you click on the button it does all kinds of bad stuff to your machine. The thing is, when it does this, the URL line goes from "www.hotmail.com" to "about:blank" -- and I also noticed that "about:blank" shows up as my Home Page under "Internet Options." I did a google search on "about:blank" and found out it's some kind of Homepage Hijacker, but I couldn't understand the conflicting instructions on the various webpages about .DLL attachments and hidden files with different names. They're all written for the computer literate, and computer literate is one thing I am not.

Anybody have any familiarity with this problem? What do I do now? I can't even get to Hotmail long enough to open my Inbox and see if I have any mail.

Help!

Johnathan

Edit: For some reason, there's a "_" between "about" and ":blank" that I didn't put in there. It doesn't show up when I look at what I typed, but it's there when I hit "Save Changes" -- weird.

 

[Torm]

I very much recommend going to www.lavasoftusa.com and downloading the free personal edition of Ad Aware. Install it, then double click the icon it places on your desktop. Click "Check for updates" and get the latest malware signatures, so it can find as much as possible. Then, hit Start in it, and pick Perform smart system-scan, if it isn't already the default, and hit Next. Should clean off MOST of that sort of junk from your system.

Also, if you have an Anti-Virus software, make sure it's at least the 2003 version, and that it has all the updates it needs, and run a scan with it, too. If you don't have AV software and are on the 'net, may God(dess) have mercy on your soul.

- I'm not only a computer tech who deals with this junk day-in and day-out, I ALSO stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

[Richards]

Yeah, I have Norton Antivirus 2003. I clicked on the link you provided and got "The page cannot be displayed." I'll keep trying; maybe the site is down or something right now.

I really appreciate the help, though, Torm. When it comes to computer stuff, "I have always been dependent upon the kindness of strangers."

Johnathan

 

[Torm]

I just tried it and went through no problem. It could be that some of the junk already on your machine is blocking their site by forbidding it in the host file. Try this:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/adaware.html

Happy to help.

 

[Richards]

Yeah, that second link worked. I went through the steps (very easy to follow, too, which I appreciate), got a bunch of stuff "quarantined," but "about:blank" still survives. I really appreciate the assistance, though, Torm. Any other suggestions on things I might try?

Johnathan

 

[Lefferts]

Yeah, that second link worked. I went through the steps (very easy to follow, too, which I appreciate), got a bunch of stuff "quarantined," but "about:blank" still survives. I really appreciate the assistance, though, Torm. Any other suggestions on things I might try?

Johnathan

I had a problem a ways back with a hompage "hijacker" (for lack of a better
term). I would change my hompage to about:blank, but everytime I rebooted
it would get changed to some search engine.

I finally solved my problem with a program called Spybot. It's free (donations
accepted) and removes all sorts of spyware. It's available at: (found via
google)

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

Good luck!

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I'd recommend using a combination of both Ad Aware and Spybot. I run both on my PC (home & work) and they work great as a combination. They will both catch the same spyware, but each also catches a few things that the other misses. You will get a warning from Spybot that AdAware may cause a confilct due to a setting that Spybot makes, but it's ok, just click through it. I've used them in combination on many staff PCs at work, and never encountered a problem.

 

[Wraith Form]

I'd recommend using a combination of both Ad Aware and Spybot. I run both on my PC (home & work) and they work great as a combination. They will both catch the same spyware, but each also catches a few things that the other misses. You will get a warning from Spybot that AdAware may cause a confilct due to a setting that Spybot makes, but it's ok, just click through it. I've used them in combination on many staff PCs at work, and never encountered a problem.

Free stuff is all well and good, but I work on a tech support desk for a large (well-known) computer manufacturer. One of the best anti-spyware programs you can get is SpySweeper by WebRoot. (If you Google it, you'll see it's getting very good reviews.) I use it in conjuction with Ad Aware and have no problems, ever. SpySweeper -> I heartily recommend it.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

You are infected with CoolWebSearch (CWS) spyware and need the CWS shredder.

Download it here:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

OR here:

http://www2.krone.at/freezone/internet_tools/freezone_download_140404_1.html

You should strongly consider using a different web browser if you continue to visit suspect web pages. Most spyware is written to take advantage of IE specifically, so if you use an alternate browser like Mozilla's Firefox, the spyware traces won't effect you. (!!! Simple eh? !!!)

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/why/

GREAT broswer. 5 minutes to install. Easy, really. Built in pop up stopper. No spyware. Most everything works ( but I have found a few sites that require IE to load properly - less than one % though ). Easy to import your IE bookmarks. Did I mention it is FREE?

 

[Torm]

SpySweeper -> I heartily recommend it.

I like it, too. I was just trying to get his problem solved for free, first, though.

I heartily recommend trying CWS Shredder above, as well. Getting a copy of SpySweeper is a good idea, but if they don't take care of the problem, the next step is getting a tech's eyes on the machine.

Be careful if you do use Spybot and Ad-Aware together - they sometimes detect each other as spyware and remove parts of each other.