My IE homepage keeps changing, help!

Ok... Since yesterday I haven't been able to get my IE homepage to stay what I want it to. It keeps changing itself to some porn link site, and I really don't want it there. I've deleted my cookies, temp files, history, offline content, etc. I've run Adaware a couple of times, but I can't seem to get it to stop changing.

Does anyone know what might be able to help me?

Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by Faisca
Ok... Since yesterday I haven't been able to get my IE homepage to stay what I want it to. It keeps changing itself to some porn link site, and I really don't want it there. I've deleted my cookies, temp files, history, offline content, etc. I've run Adaware a couple of times, but I can't seem to get it to stop changing.

Does anyone know what might be able to help me?

Thanks in advance.

Have you tried spybot? It sounds to me that you have spyware on your computer. Does Adware have the updated definitions?

Another problem could be that ISearch toolbar got installed on your computer it will change your homepage but I don't think it will change it to porn sites. Just incase here's a link to unistall.
Unistall I-Search

Thanks I'll try those. I'm sure its some kind of spyware, just don't know how to get rid of it!

Don't tell me, your using Internet Explorer. Note this is just the beginning. Soon your computer will freeze, The caps lock will be automatically turned on, and other (c) will follow, including excessive popups. Installing a popup stopper is useless, You right-click a link --> open in new window and popup stopper will kill it.
Easy Solution:
Switch to Netscape

It could be a trojan too. Do you have an antivirus system? You really should have one.
In case you don't, there's one I found on my travels. I used in in my other computer and it was pretty good. Its free too.
www.grisoft.com...

The spybot software is good, as KillerD said. You can get it from this site
www.safer-networking.org...

I don't have Adaware, but from what I have read, maybe its time I picked up a copy.

Thanks for the input guys. Yeah I think I might end up switching to Netscape, I use IE because it's what came with my computer and I haven't felt like downloading or getting Netscape. I have Norton Antivirus but it hasn't been updated since 2002, lol. I just ran Ad-aware which is a spyware killer, I got the newest updates for it, but it seems like it still hasn't worked. It caught a lot of spyware, but my homepage is still the same. Makes me angry... I guess I'm gonna have to keep trying, I'm gonna buy an upgrade for the Norton antivirus soon, I just haven't gotten around to it.

About the Netscape thing, can you just download that? I'm actually going to attempt to wipe my harddrive and start over sometime soon, so I could probably just get Netscape instead of IE.

Thanks for the help guys, I hope something works =)

I've got the AVG virus killer that was mentioned earlier. Try downloading that. Then change your homepage before connecting to the net.

Everyone has made great suggestions. I put forth an alternative browser: Mozilla Firefox. I switched a few months back and have zero regrets. It is stable, has a small footprint, blocks pop-ups, and has integrated Google searching. You can even customize it to have ATS searching built-in!

You definitely have a "homepage hijacker" installed. Up-to-date versions/signatures of Spybot and AdAware should detect and remove them. Personally, I use both!

AVG is a good antivirus product and seems to have less impact on performance than others that I have used. I am a Norton fan, but just because I have work experience with it and they have daily updates. It is a pretty big install and its process take up around 15-20MB of RAM.

Originally posted by Spectre
Everyone has made great suggestions. I put forth an alternative browser: Mozilla Firefox. I switched a few months back and have zero regrets.

I switched to FireFox and so far I like it. Has a small footprint and seems pretty stable. Thanks for the suggestion Spectre.



[Edited on 27-5-2004 by KillerD]

You need to get Spybot, one of things it can do is lock your homepage so that it won't get hijacked. Ad-aware is great but will not get this one. There has been a change is your registry in several places (run, prefetch) plus a few more.

Originally posted by Faisca


so I could probably just get Netscape instead of IE.

I highly recommend downloading Opera browser. It's unsurpassed in my opinion. Netscape has similar problems to IE in some places. You can try Firefox, but it hasn't reached a totally comparable version yet.