Browser hijack attempt

[Howie]

hey. so ive been running ad aware, and it says i have a 4 browser hijack attempts in my "critical object" list. so, i then delete them like a normal critical object, except they dont seem to leave my computer, because when i run ad aware immediatly after running it the first time, the "hijack attempts" reappear on the "critical object" list . is this spyware? what can i do? i didnt really know where to ask so i asked here first . thanks for your input.

[JTWood]

Never heard of that. I'm interested to know what it is, too.

[reznorsboy]

I used to get a message from ad-aware that it couldn't delete certain files because they where in use at the time and it would ask me if I wanted to do a scan upon next log-in and when I did that it usually got rid of the problem. That prolly doesn't help you but it might.

[Amazinz]

Have you tried deleting the objects in Safe Mode? I believe Ad-Aware operates in SM, if not there is an MS tool that does. That would be my first guess. If they are actually hijackers and not a false alarm, they probably use a DLL. These libraries are loaded at start-up and then locked by Windows. When you load Windows in SM only the core Windows DLLs are loaded and you should be able to delete them then.

[Tavish]

You might Google around for the specific files that are reappearing. They may be attached to a program you recently downloaded or may have altered the registry in ways that must be manually repaired.

[Rirruto]

Have you tried deleting the objects in Safe Mode?

I was about to ask that

[shpuck]

Tavish's suggestion is a very good one. Whenever something I don't recognize pops up, I google for it, and it usually comes up within the first two pages of hits.

If you're truly being hijacked by a parasite program, try running HijackThis! (it used to be spelled this way).

You can find it on Majorgeeks.com

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

It's a sophisticated program. I think there is the real possibility to damage your system if you're not careful. Fortunately, the site does a good job of helping you through the problems, and there are plenty of posts on tech forums to help. I used HijackThis! to clean up a friends computer who had a redirect problem to an advertisement site when she launched IE. Took me several hours, but was quite satisfied when I got it to work.

Hope this helps.

[Lofunzo]

I also run Registry Mechanic. That has really helped me a lot with past and future issues.

[MMoNeY24]

I used to get a message from ad-aware that it couldn't delete certain files because they where in use at the time and it would ask me if I wanted to do a scan upon next log-in and when I did that it usually got rid of the problem. That prolly doesn't help you but it might.

that's happened to me before also, i fixed it the same way you did.

[j_d_mcnugent]

Tavish's suggestion is a very good one. Whenever something I don't recognize pops up, I google for it, and it usually comes up within the first two pages of hits.

If you're truly being hijacked by a parasite program, try running HijackThis! (it used to be spelled this way).

You can find it on Majorgeeks.com

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

It's a sophisticated program. I think there is the real possibility to damage your system if you're not careful. Fortunately, the site does a good job of helping you through the problems, and there are plenty of posts on tech forums to help. I used HijackThis! to clean up a friends computer who had a redirect problem to an advertisement site when she launched IE. Took me several hours, but was quite satisfied when I got it to work.

Hope this helps.

thats all good advice. also make sure you are using the latest version of adaware. sometimes they update it and it will be able to remove things it previously could not. additionally, since i have plenty of space on my computer i use the tag team combo of adaware and spybot. they mostly overlap but occasionally spybot will be able to do something that adaware wont be able to and vice versa.