Hijacked by Marsfind. What to do?
 

My IE browser has been hijacked by Marsfind which cant find ANYTHING. If I mistype an address, marsfind appears to seach for me. Since it can't find Teoma, my search engine of choice, or anything else I type in, I have no use for it. The only address info on the site is a snail mail address in HongKong.

How do I get rid of this? The usual methods don't work, and I've had two IT guys say "yeah, do this and this, then use Mozilla." Well, this and this don't help.

Any advice welcome. Willing to reformat if I can learn how to avoid this in the future.

Symptom: You click "Log in" from the Queen's WebCT Entry page and get a 'Page Not Found' error message. Check the URL in your browser. If the URL is www.marsfind.com/xxxx, this indicates that your computer has 'spyware' installed.

Solution: Go to the Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs, and remove program listed as "httper". Quit and then restart the browser.

You can also visit this website to check your IE browser for "parasites": http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/

There is a program called Spybot to remove spyware on your system. I think I recall that it was PC Magazines editors choice for spyware removal and it is FREE. The author asks that you send him some money if you like it so that he can keep improving and updating it. I just got it and like it a lot. It might help you. Ad aware is good also.

Ad-Aware is also free and highly recommended.

I'll also vouch for adaware...

Go to: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/

there are other browsers. This is the scene where I suggest Mozilla. It is better than IE -- allowing for tabbed browsing, lots of cool plugins and better security. There isn't much good about IE really.

The bad news is the Microsoft in the prime target of these criminals. The good news is that Microsoft is becoming more serious about security and third party help is plentiful.

I've done the following and it's probably just luck but I've not had a virus and no popups and no hijacking of IE.

Googles tool bar. It's anti popup is foolproof and yet allows virtually all click throughs.

Zone alarm was a firewall.

Ad aware for spyware and hijackers.

Nortons Anti Virus subsription.

Signed up for Windows update.

I've tried Mozilla and Navigator which are the same thing. It seems like money talks. They feel like only partially finished with lots of rough edges.

That said, if I didn't rely on a VPN and other Microsoft dependent software, I'd switch to an Apple.

Run both Ad-Aware and Spybot. Both are very good programs, but often one finds things the other doesn't (difference might just be impolite cookies). Also ensure you update their scripts, every few weeks.

Thank you! It's gone! UALOneKPlus your solution worked great.

BTW, I'm running Ad-Aware 6.0 and it didn't find Marsfind. Also using Google toolbar, both thanks to FT.

So what is the httper program? Just any spyware shows up as that?

I was briefly helping my daughter get a program working and noticed pop-ups all over the place. She has adware and doesn't know from where -- just started a few days ago. I will suggest she try one or both of these program.