wilkes

i've learned that if your teen uses this same pc, they tend to want to download these cool emoticons of smiley faces and the like. you will have to go to add/remove programs and the respective ? program will remove that re-direction of your browser. sorry i dont know which one affects your pc. ask more here for help. you then have to follow the previous reply telling instructions on how to change your default opening page. i'll agree with the mozilla fan. internet explorer is the root of all these evils..

Native you will enjoy Mozzila. It is also faster than IE.

Do a serch on google and you will find Mozilla. Its a free download and it will put a shortcut on your desktop.

How do i get mozilla...download from the web? And will it put an icon on my desktop like IE?

Internet Exployer is TERRIBLE!!! I would recommend to anyone that uses it to switch to Mozilla. IE is very bad for spyware and pop ups. When I switched to Mozilla 99% of my problems stopped.

IE is more susceptible to Spyware that is why I like Mozilla. Takes less memory to run it, less bugs in it, and it isn't integrated with several other programs like IE is.

My reply was much better JSH.... :P

If Teri comes back and says that my solution didnt fix it, then i would have started to get more technical. I've learned in dealing with people, getting technical only confuses them even more... short, and simple... best policy :) Good response however!

Sounds to me like you possibly have some spyware that has "hosed" your windows Hosts file. The Hosts file is a file that all windows machines have that point websites to their respective IP addresses. This is necessary because websites are really only accessible through their IP address which is a long number. This number is in the format XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX where X can be any number. Even though we type in "www.google.com", the computer is REALLY told to go to 64.233.167.147 because this is google's IP address.

When you type in www..com, it sends this request to your Internet Service's DNS which tells it the correct place to go. For example, when you type in www.google.com, your ISP's DNS server tells your computer to go directly to 64.233.167.147, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

However, before sending this request "out to the internet" to the DNS, your computer first checks to see if the IP address for that particular website is stored in the Hosts file on your computer. Therefore, if you had an entry in your Hosts file that stated: "64.233.167.147 www.google.com" then your computer would not have to check with the DNS before going to the IP address because it already knows which IP address to go to.

Sometimes, spyware will add entries to the Hosts file to keep you from being able to get to certain other websites. This is accomplished by adding an entry that is NOT correct. For example, if you added an entry to your Hosts file that said "127.0.0.1 www.google.com" then you would never be able to get to the Google's website until you corrected this bad entry.

A good test for you would be to attempt to go to www.lavasoftusa.com and download AdAware SE. It is a free program that will scan your computer for spyware. If you cannot get to this website, then it is very likely that spyware has been installed on your system and it has added an incorrect entry to keep you from getting to AdAware's website. If this is the case, you can go to:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

Download the program called "HiJack This" and run it. It will show you any entries that have been added to your Hosts file. If there are any listed, simply delete them.

Another possibility is that spyware has reconfigured your web browser to send information through a "proxy". This means that any website you go to gets sent through a "proxy" that the spyware company is running. This is how they monitor websites that you go to. If this proxy is not working, then it can cause the sites not to come up for you.

It is easy to check this. If you are using Internet Explorer (which is the most common browser) then simply go up to the toolbar and click "Tools" then "Internet Options" then the "Connections" tab, then the "LAN Settings" tab. If the "use proxy server" box is checked, uncheck it. If it was checked, then that's a definite sign that spyware has been installed and is directing all your website activity through their proxy, therefore causing the problem.

Sorry if this post has gotten too technical, but I tried my best to describe how the spyware might be the cause of your problems. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

-JSH

No, actually I haven't. I didn't think spyware would do that type of error. But I will scan my computer and see If that helps. Thanks!

Sounds like spyware to me. Have you scanned your system for spyware?

I am having a slight problem. I hope someone can help me. When i go to some web pages, and then it might take me to another site, it will say PAGE NOT FOUND. I have went into Internet Exployer and reset web options. what else could be wrong?