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Search Engines

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by jeremy27 Oct 21, 2003 last reply Oct 21, 2003

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Help, I have a problem connecting to search engines on the internet. I can connect to any site except for search engine sites - e.g. google, lycos, altavista etc... Is this a virus? Where is the fix for this?

5 replies

by john Oct 21, 2003

Does your browser get re-directed to another site? Try installing Ad-Aware. You can get it from download.com that might help.

by jschein Oct 21, 2003

If your browser is being re-directed to nonexistent sites or sites not requested, your browser / host file / registry has been modified by spyware.

Goto: www.lavasoftusa.com

Download adaware, update it. Hit next, check all boxes there, select custom search, pick all local hard drives, run. when it is complete, rightclick on the list of spyware, select all, then hit next. It will remove all maliciously modified files and inserted ones. Reboot. run scan one more time. If more found, do same as above, reboot and you should be clean now.

by cwdunn Oct 21, 2003

There is a virus currently circulating that will not allow you access the search engines that you seek, instead it redirects you to a web site that gets "points" for the number of logins that it receives. You should update your virus software ASAP and scan you hard drive.

by onlydrasvedammit Oct 21, 2003

Then the problem is a virus. I ran into this myself and just now fixed it.

Go to http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.qhosts.html
and follow the manual instructions to fix it.
The automatic tool may work, if not just follow the manual steps until you've cleared everything out. after your done you should be able to use search engines again.