Help get google.com back on my compy!

Cyrix_2k

Member

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Joined

Jul 5, 2003

Location

Frederick, MD

• Dec 8, 2003

• #1

I just came back to my compy to find a whole bunch of pop-ups on the screen. I closed out of them but one keeps on coming back. It says privacyoutpost.com. Anyway, if that's not bad enough, it took over google.com! Iy goes to privacyoutpost.com when I type in google.com, but still displays google.com in the address bar. I've already tired norton's "qhost remover" and Adaware 6 with the latest updates. I also tried a program called cwshredder. I'm out of idea's. Please help!

 

mage_x

Member

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Joined

Oct 29, 2002

• Dec 8, 2003

• #2

have you scanned for viruses?

 

fiji

Member

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Joined

Jul 14, 2002

Location

berlin

• Dec 8, 2003

• #3

try both

ad-aware

and

spybot search and destroy

 

OP

Cyrix_2k

Member

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Joined

Jul 5, 2003

Location

Frederick, MD

• Dec 9, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #4

bump as google still isn't working. Does anyone have ANY idea how to fix this?

 

BigRed

Caffinated Member

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Joined

Apr 6, 2001

Location

Mount Vernon, WA

• Dec 9, 2003

• #5

Most likeley you were visiting some sites with... questionable content and they thought it would be funny to alter your hosts file.

Go to Run and type "notepad %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"
Without quotes and delete the entry for www.google.com Save then exit that. Google should come up normally then.

 

kagee108

Member

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Joined

Dec 18, 2002

Location

Toledo, Ohio

• Dec 9, 2003

• #6

You have an infection. I forget what it is called, but my son's pc had the same thing. No search engine would work.

I have to dig up the site we went to for the fix.

 

eaglescouter

Frustrating Senior SETI Nut!

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Joined

Dec 9, 2002

Location

CA- Not far from the Allen SETI array

• Dec 10, 2003

• #7

Download, install, update, and run spybot search and destroy. Then do an online antivirus scan at pandasoftware.com (free online scan.)

You appear to have a browser hijacker at the very least.

 

OP

Cyrix_2k

Member

​

Joined

Jul 5, 2003

Location

Frederick, MD

• Dec 10, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #8

Thanks everyone.

This is what finally worked:
Go to Run and type "notepad %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"

When posted the "bump", I didn't see any of the posts except my first one. Somehow the website screwed my browser up and it wasn't updating the threads! Ad Aware 6 fixed that.

 

kagee108

Member

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Joined

Dec 18, 2002

Location

Toledo, Ohio

• Dec 10, 2003

• #9

good deal... could have been worse, much worse.