Browser History filling up when closed

amnmaddox · 27 Nov 2014

Hello All,
I have recently encountered an issue with Explorer and all my avenues to handle it have failed, so here we go!

A week or so ago, I noticed a ton (Very long list) of weird ads and sites in my browser history. I cleared my history and closed Explorer. 5 minutes or so later, after not opening Explorer at all, I opened my browser, and bam!, full of bookmarks for weird sites. I've tried updates, spyware detection, MalwareBytes, Anti-virus even "un-updating Explorer" with no dice. I also tried the instructions listed in this post:
https://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/353168-why-ie-running-background.html

NO LUCK! I am at my wits end! As of right now, after clearing my history, I have 15 bookmarks to various websites I've never heard of and even a few random IP Addresses. Its almost like Explorer has a mind of its own. Does anyone out there have any ideas?

jamis · 28 Nov 2014

This sounds like the same problem I had last week with IE11 running amuck on my system without being launched from the desktop. I found that one of the Patch Tuesday updates had caused some of the Internet Options to change from what I had them set to. It had upped the disk space for Temporary Internet Files to the max, and it had changed the days to keep history to the max. It also changed the JavaScript debugging options and changed the "empty temporary internet folders when browser is closed" options in the advanced settings. That wasn't the real source of my run away IE. No matter how quickly I would run CCleaner with secure deletion set to 7, it would find hundreds of IE Temporary Internet Files and dozens of cookies, all to sites we had never visited. I had run both NIS and SpyBotS&D full scans with no hits. I ran MSERT.EXE on a full system scan and it found a Trojan that seemed to be the cause. Take a look at this thread and see if it applies to your issue. No repeat of this issue since MSERT ran.

IE11 Temporary Internet Files & Cookies W/O IE Loaded.

ThrashZone · 29 Nov 2014

Hi use Clean boot,
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/179159-troubleshoot-application-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html
Click Start and type in the search box,
msconfig
Click on the suggestion on top or hit the Enter key,
Go to the Startup section and take some screen shots for a complete list,
Go to the Services section and on the bottom left Check the box to Hide All Microsoft services,
Repeat the screen shots,
See the links above my signature on how to take and upload screen shots here,
Cheers.