Back button no longer working in Google search results - both XP & 7

JimLewandowski · 29 Sep 2011

It started at work on my XP/IE7 machine around 2 PM. I got home and booted up my WIndows 7 PC and Google search is broken.

When you click a link from the Google search resulsts list, it is inserting a www.google.comxxcfwer843575735 of some kind in front of the real link. When you click your back button after visiting a webpage via the Google search results list, it momentarily goes to that funky prefixed google.com page but then throws you back to the same page you were on. This is a google problem and I don't know if it's related to Windows OS version or IE version.

Anak · 29 Sep 2011

Hi JimLewandowski, welcome to 7F! :)

It sounds like you contracted a re-direct virus.

Do you use a flash drive between work and home?
When was the last time you really checked your machine? You will have to get the one at work cleaned also.

At this link check out the Online File Scanner Sites, and the one at the bottom, How to Scrub your PC Clean:
Security Basics - Windows 7 Forums

This is MS's own Safety Scanner, it is quite large, but does a thorough job:
Microsoft Safety Scanner - Antivirus | Remove Spyware, Malware, Viruses Free

If you have any trouble getting to those sites use Safe Mode with Networking, and you might have to rename some downloads to fool the virus if you have one.
Once clean create a new restore point, and delete all the old ones because they will be infected to.

JimLewandowski · 30 Sep 2011

Anak said:

Hi JimLewandowski, welcome to 7F! :)

It sounds like you contracted a re-direct virus.

Do you use a flash drive between work and home?
When was the last time you really checked your machine? You will have to get the one at work cleaned also.

At this link check out the Online File Scanner Sites, and the one at the bottom, How to Scrub your PC Clean:
Security Basics - Windows 7 Forums

This is MS's own Safety Scanner, it is quite large, but does a thorough job:
Microsoft Safety Scanner - Antivirus | Remove Spyware, Malware, Viruses Free

If you have any trouble getting to those sites use Safe Mode with Networking, and you might have to rename some downloads to fool the virus if you have one.
Once clean create a new restore point, and delete all the old ones because they will be infected to.

No virus. You have to click TWICE to get back to the Google results page. It's happening to some people all over the world.

Work machine has no virus.

Home machine was not touched. Been off for days and Google worked perfectly last time it was booted up. Identical symptoms on both machines = no virus.

EDIT: Problem fixed by google. Both machines working normally.

Anak · 30 Sep 2011

Thank you for posting back, and letting us know!

I have also noticed aberrant behaviour especially when google presents a "new look", but nothing of the sort that you ran into.

What would happen for me was my search preferences would fall back to google's defaults, and I would have to go and re-set them. They have also for some reason made it more difficult to actually find your preference page.

JimLewandowski · 30 Sep 2011

Anak said:

Thank you for posting back, and letting us know!

I have also noticed aberrant behaviour especially when google presents a "new look", but nothing of the sort that you ran into.

What would happen for me was my search preferences would fall back to google's defaults, and I would have to go and re-set them. They have also for some reason made it more difficult to actually find your preference page.

It seems this was somehow related to an ad or googleleads.*.* website that you'd get stuck in a loop where it kept linking back to the page you were just on. Like they had to fix the code for that ad website?

Anak · 30 Sep 2011

With knowing nothing about HTML, CSS or any of the other web designs, I would say that is a reasonable diagnosis.

I wonder, do you use any type of ad-blocker? I do, and was certainly on the web during the times you were, but did not experience your problem.

JimLewandowski · 30 Sep 2011

I believe I have a pop-up blocker at work and at home. But, at work nothing changed (gov't PC so no software changes except by admins). It happened while I was using google. IOW, it worked fine one minute and was broken for the rest of the day. I thought it might be some XP issue or something and was quite surprised to see my home W7 PC act identically (again, no changes of any kind, hadn't been booted up in a few days).

Anak · 30 Sep 2011

My first thought was "Government Conspiracy", but lets not go there.

Anyone else in your circle have the same problem? Especially at work.

Does make you wonder how it followed you home.

JimLewandowski · 30 Sep 2011

Anak said:

My first thought was "Government Conspiracy", but lets not go there.

Anyone else in your circle have the same problem? Especially at work.

Does make you wonder how it followed you home.

I didn't ask at work but would have checked with someone today if it was still happening.

I tried google search at home last night both logged into google vs. not. No difference. Someone mentioned using www.google.co.uk as the problem wasn't happening there. Tried that and it DID work. But only the first trip there. Subsequent trips had the .uk website acting the same whether logged in or not.

Jacee · 01 Oct 2011

See if deleting all cookies, history and cleaning all temp files helps with the issue.