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20/07/2009, 8:26 tel Joined on 23/08/2004 Ex Morbihan(56) Posts 217 Re: AOL search doing weird things! Hi John, As Clair has indicated you probably have a 'Hijack Trojan', there are many in the wild.  Try the method in this LINK to remove it. Best of Luck   Tel    Report

20/07/2009, 9:54 suein56 Joined on 23/08/2004 Southern Morbihan (56) Posts 2,184 Re: AOL search doing weird things!  JohnRoss wrote: When you say "The first thing I did was to make sure that as soon as AOL was up and running I opened up internet access through IE;"  I assume that you must have either had some bad experience of AOL before or have been alerted by someone else to potential problems. When you say " thereby avoiding the worst of the AOL nannylike compulsion to monitor and restrict every move made." What do you mean by this as such a description is alien to me and it would be useful to have examples so that I can check to see if I am a victim of such things in some way as yet undetected by me. It was just that, having had unfettered access to websites using my old ISP, I could detect sometimes I was not being given the full access I was used to using.  JohnRoss wrote: However interesting as others views of AOL are I would really like to address the problem I reported in my original post.....................JR I agree with the other posters you would seem to have acquired a nasty somewhere along the line. Sue Computing - it's another world    Report

20/07/2009, 12:01 JohnRoss Joined on 27/05/2008 Deux Sevres Posts 769 Re: AOL search doing weird things! Thanks again Sue but as I have never used another ISP other than AOL so I am unaware that I may be being fettered by them. Anything I look for seems to come up ok until this problem started and the search bar on the welcome page still works ok but then I would not know if anything they don't like is missing. I think the problem is to do with Internet Explorer (8) as I have discovered that if I get rid of all the other search bars in I.E. like Yahoo, AVG and AOL all works well when using I.E. with the example I gave in my first post on this. Sadly when I fire up AOL I still get the same problem that I had before. I allowed the machine to update windows yesterday by downloading Windows Vista Service Pack 2 which was a mistake as I cannot now restore the system to an earlier date to see if that fixes the problem. I will try restoring it to before the Service pack update and see if the system then allows me to go back further. Really don't need this just now!..............JR    Report

20/07/2009, 14:29 suein56 Joined on 23/08/2004 Southern Morbihan (56) Posts 2,184 Re: AOL search doing weird things!  JohnRoss wrote: Anything I look for seems to come up ok until this problem started and the search bar on the welcome page still works ok ... Have sent you a pm John. Sue Computing - it's another world    Report

20/07/2009, 15:38 JohnRoss Joined on 27/05/2008 Deux Sevres Posts 769 Re: AOL search doing weird things! Thanks again Sue and I have replied to your pm. The situation just got a wee bit stranger! I fired up our old machine which runs Windows Millenium with Internet Explorer 6, not 8 like the other machine, and with AOL 9 and not 9.1 and guess what, exactly the same problem soooo looks like it may be something their end. The only common factor here is the AOL broadband box. I have asked a friend to check out their machine as they also run AOL. The old machine has not been on-line for weeks so I think that almost rules out the possibility of a recent downloaded Trojan or some such. It would be good to hear from anyone else having the same problem with AOL or even if your are not having problems, I cannot be the only one on this forum using it...............................................................JR PS My friend just got back to me and it is happening to her machine as well so panic over but are there others out there with this problem just now? A second friend has just confirmed it is happening to his system too. All the machines have different versions of I.E. and run different ISP software, one AOL 9.1, one AOL 9, one neuf and one SFR. These are all basically AOL of course so they have that in common! Chances are that anyone in France on AOL or associated ISP may have the same problem.    Report

27/07/2009, 10:44 JohnRoss Joined on 27/05/2008 Deux Sevres Posts 769 Re: AOL search doing weird things! Ok well tried OpenDNS and I am afraid no difference except, and this may be my imagination, web pages seem to load more quickly than they did. It really is no big deal to go on as we are except that the search bar at the top of the welcome page is masked by any other web page you have open so if you don't want to close it before doing another search you have to click and drag it down out of the way before typing new search words. To be honest I am still not sure how OpenDNS has modified they way I access the web so will have to get more info on that. Thanks for the help guys.........JR    Report

28/07/2009, 14:48 JohnRoss Joined on 27/05/2008 Deux Sevres Posts 769 Re: AOL search doing weird things! Well even weirder the problem I reported has just disappeared today. The only Windows update today has been this one which I would not have thought could be responsible but what do I know. Maybe AOL has done an update, don't know how you could tell!...................................................JR   Definition Update for Windows Defender - KB915597 (Definition 1.63.422.0)   Date d'installation : ‎28/‎07/‎2009 09:27   État de l'installation : Réussite   Type de mise à jour : Important   Install this update to revise the definition files used to detect spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Once you have installed this item, it cannot be removed.    Report

28/07/2009, 15:19 tel Joined on 23/08/2004 Ex Morbihan(56) Posts 217 Re: AOL search doing weird things! Hi John, Have you checked Windows Defender 'quarantined items' to see if it has removed any spyware?  Clair and I suggested earlier in this thread that you may have a trojan. Then again many problems sort themselves out just by re-booting the PC. Regards   Tel    Report

28/07/2009, 15:35 JohnRoss Joined on 27/05/2008 Deux Sevres Posts 769 Re: AOL search doing weird things! Thanks tel but nothing in Defender quarantine. I did run Spybot S&D and AVG recently but nothing found either. Maybe AOL has done an update but no-one else has reported problems. My two friends who said they had problems don't in fact so still weird. I have just checked my old Millenium based machine and that had the fault too but it is gone now also so it must be something to do with either AOL or more likely the AOL box which both machines use, the only common factors for both machines........................................................JR PS I did try the Spyware Doctor thingy but it found nothing significant. Don't think it could have been a trojan as both machines had been affected in the same way and the old machine had not been on prior to the event which was sometime last week so lots of reboots since then.    Report

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