Homepage is always changing

[codyw]

Everytime I open Internet Explorer on my PC I always get the attached picture. It doesn't matter what I tell it to do it always shows up when I launch IE. How can I get it to stop appearing on me?

 

[arobinson1984]

Have you scanned the pc for malware/spyware?


Andy

 

[richc46]

Follow above advice, its probably a redirect virus. I will get you excellent help. Please just be patient.

 

[arobinson1984]

Download super-antispyware, spybot search and destroy and spyware terminator

Update each of them and run them one at a time and see if any of them find anything

Andy

 

[panais]

Everytime I open Internet Explorer on my PC I always get the attached picture. It doesn't matter what I tell it to do it always shows up when I launch IE. How can I get it to stop appearing on me?

Download install and scan with those:
SUPERAntiSpyware.com - Downloading File
|MG| Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.50.1 Download
--------------------------------------------------------------
Superantispyware also includes a homepage/change protection.

 

[Jacee]

Is your homepage set to HP.com? Do you have Spybot s&d and TeaTimer running?

 

[codyw]

To answer all your questions:

1. I have KIS 2011 on my PC. I read some reviews on it and it scored decently.
2. I have Malwarebytes, SAS, Spybot S&D installed.
3. I have scanned for malware but none was found. However, I did have a bad outbreak with another AV vendor that let in over 100 pieces of spyware. I did do a wipe of the system including a reformat of the C drive.

 

[fseal]

A more obvious possibility?

This an HP computer or laptop right?

If so, they may have installed a piece of crapware that is resetting your homepage to their website...

Depending on how clever they have hidden it, you may be able to find it by running Start/Search window. Then go to "Startup" tab. There may be several HP programs there some to control a mouse pad, special keyboard features etc. One of them may also be messing with your homepage settings. You can disable start up programs here one by one if they don't look like they are important and see if the problem goes away. You can always reenable them later if necessary.

 

[codyw]

Yes it's an HP. It's a laptop and at 1 year old it went into hardware failure after Norton 2011 let in 101 pieces of spyware. It's a long, disgusting story. I was without it for a month while it was at Best Buy being repaired. At only 1 year old 3 things had to be replaced in it. I was mad about that. It should have lasted a lot longer than that.

 

[codyw]

Here's what Spyware Terminator found:

 

[codyw]

I guess my question here is: Can this problem be fixed and is Kaspersky doing it's job or do I need to look at other alternatives/options? (If this is the right question to post in this category)

 

[fseal]

Well those things found are nothing much.

By far the best explaination is a piece of HP crapware doing this too you. The chance of a virus changing your home page to HPs website are astronomically small

In the old days HP would ship with it's own customized verion of ie! Thank goodness those days are gone.

But try my previous suggestion of mssconfig.exe. It has to be some piece of HP software. EIther in your startup, or possibly installed as an IE addon. you can look for IE Addons here from IE itself from Tools->Manage addons in the IE menu bar. If you see somthing in there like "HP blah blah.." then disable it

Edit:

P.S. Though this acts like a contracted "virus" there is very little chance that any antivirus is going to touch it because it really is a "legitimate" piece of software installed by the manufacturer

 

[panais]

Well those things found are nothing much.

By far the best explaination is a piece of HP crapware doing this too you. The chance of a virus changing your home page to HPs website are astronomically small

In the old days HP would ship with it's own customized verion of ie! Thank goodness those days are gone.

But try my previous suggestion of mssconfig.exe. It has to be some piece of HP software. EIther in your startup, or possibly installed as an IE addon. you can look for IE Addons here from IE itself from Tools->Manage addons in the IE menu bar. If you see somthing in there like "HP blah blah.." then disable it

Edit:

P.S. Though this acts like a contracted "virus" there is very little chance that any antivirus is going to touch it because it really is a "legitimate" piece of software installed by the manufacturer

<<Crapware>>,a new word in computing world

 

[codyw]

I was able to get the message about the homepage changing to go away in the add-ons section but now everytime I change the homepage to yahoo or something it changes back to HP's AOL page automatically. Even if I click the Apply button it still does that but I do see some questionable things in the msconfig window:

 

[ickymay]

this sounds to me like a legacy from your Norton install and is to do with "norton homepage protections" , do you have any part of Norton still installed ? otherwise I think its a case of tracking down the reg key and associated .exe ?

 

[codyw]

I no longer own Norton at all after what it did to me. Nor do I have it installed at all. However, wouldn't a reformat and reinstall have fixed that issue? I guess as long as I got that message to quit coming up is OK for now since I use Firefox heavily but IE comes in handy from time to time.

 

[codyw]

I just went into Kaspersky's application control and found something suspicious that may be causing the home page trouble but don't know where this utility would be located:

 

[ickymay]

so have you done a format and reinstall ?

there is an AOL utility that is strangely enough called "aol homepage protection utility" so maybe look for that in control panel\programs & features and unninstall it ?

 

[Jacee]

If you have Spybot S&D and TeaTimer installed, TeaTimer will try to protect your home page too.

 

[codyw]

I'll have to see about protecting my homepage. There is no AOL Utility in the control panel. However, I went into SAS and looked and here it was the one that was not letting me change the homepage. I tweaked it to allow me to change the page and it seems to be OK now.