I woke up this morning. What do you expect? Anyway, that’s not the point here. 😛
A friend of mind was complaining that he couldn’t go online. Actually, he’s already online, just that his browser couldnt load the pages he wants to visit, er simply, it redirects automatically to a blank page, with the title bar showing ‘searchpage.html’. I immediately recognised this as some kind of spyware. Another bloke tried running Spybot Search & Destroy on his computer, unfortunately, it couldnt get rid of the ridiculous blank page :O
So, I decided to Google for some solutions to this irritating problem. (It is early in the morning with no breakfast yet). The first site I bumped into offered a great solution. I followed in step by step and TADDA! the computer is running perfectly now.
So, here’s what I did in simpler terms.
1)Download this. http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/HijackThis.exe
Make sure to save it in a new folder and run from there for backup purposes.
2)Go to My computer>Tools>Folder Options and uncheck Hide Protected OS Files…
3)Do a Scan with the Hijack software. You’re gonna notice that the word ’ searchpage.html’ appears several times. Put a tick only on those and Fix Selected. Make sure you close all windows, and DO NOT select the others like ICQ stuff and all. Open you eyes wide enough to recheck before selecting.
4)Restart in SAFE MODE (just keeping banging on F8 and select the SAFE MODE only)
5)Rerun the Hijack thingy and rescan. Feel totally cool and satisfied when you don’t see the ‘searchpage.html’ thingy appearing anymore. But wait it’s not over till I say it is. But of course, just delete some more if you still see that irritating term.
6)DO NOT START YOUR BROWSER ANYTIME DURING THIS COURSE OF HARD WORK!
7)Go and search for that term ‘searchpage.html’ using your OS Search engine. It’s bound to appear, so just get rid of it ya.
8)Restart again NOT in safe mode, meaning no more fun banging on your F8 button.
9)This time, download Adware 6. http://www.google.ca/search?q=Adaware+free&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
Install and RUN.
10)Tap your fingers and stare blankly and the running numbers as it scans. Oh, b4 that, remember to scan in Custom mode. You’re bound to see lots of files that are in fact Spybots, don’t think twice just delete it all by right clicking on anyone of it, and Select ALL.
11)After all that HARD work, restart.
12)Right click on IE or any other browser and Delete you TEmp files and History files.
13)Start your browser, it should be able to run like normal.
14)If it doesn’t, well, I dunno how more to help. Just write to the smart guy on the techforum and ask him, k, I just followed his steps. It managed to solve my friend’s prob instead of having to reformat and all. So, cool. MY first techie post of the day!
i’ve been running spybot search and destroy for years now, but after reading your post, installed ad-aware too – you’re right, there’re stuff that spybot missed! i guess better have two anti-spyware s/w than one… 🙂
Hmm. Good tip.
Another way would be to quit using IE altogether. Mozilla Firefox is fast, efficient and has less vulnerabilities for now…
Hey glad to be of help. I myself was shocked to find so many more hidden cookies found be Adware even after cleaning up in Spybot S&D. And yeah, Firefox is great, I use it as well.
I have firefox at home as well, but i still find myself having to use IE more ofen than not cos most ppl design their sites for IE only. it looks all messed up with any other browsers…
Sashi, you’re rite. Personally, I use IE more often too. Not that it’s the best, but simply coz most of my visitors use IE too. MY page looks nearly the same in Firefox albeit a little kecacatan here n there. I haven’t looked into why that’s so. But some pages built that looked fine in Firefox didnt look good in IE at all…so, will just use multiple browsers to check it. A bit time consuming I’d say. So when will the standard browser arrive?