VoidKat
December 5th, 2007, 02:50 PM
I can open Excite pages in Firefox, I seem to be able to open every other page except Excite pages in IE6 (I "downgraded" from IE7 in trying to fix the problem). I can't open email.excite.com, news.excite.com, etc. If I type "excite.com" in Google or Yahoo, nothing happens. If I type "excite" (in Google), I can see the Excite homepage (links) with its various options, but clicking on them yields no results.
By no results, I mean nothing happens. It doesn't even try to load. I might as well be entering a blank, there's no activity at all. This is a different problem than when I sometimes actually log into Excite on another computer and it tells me I can't get there because of javascript or cookies. I can get to Excite on my other computer in IE and Firefox, but Firefox always tells me I can't get to my email, though it will let me go to excite.com and subsites.
To get an idea of what I've already done to fix this, I've run Adaware, Spybot S&D, AVG Antispyware, AVG Internet Security, Vundofix, Combofix, McAfee Stinger, Panda AntiRootkit, Trendmicro scanner, Hijackthis (self parsed), CCleaner, Ewido (pre-AVG), Smitfraudfix, Regcleaner, and a host of other more targeted solutions in hopes that it might be something beyond the capabilities of these relatively more broad based solutions.
A few of these scans come up with cookies that it quarantines, but nothing I haven't seen before. I'm starting to wonder if it's a virus/malware at all? The only major symptom seems to be inability to access Excite through IE, and (it could be attributed to running several virus/malware scans at once) the occasional explorer.exe crash, which self-resolves, or just requires a three-finger salute and running explorer.exe again in the Task Manager.
The only recent changes I can think of that might account for this is installing AVG Security, where it took over Windows Firewall duties. Also, a total noob was on my computer who could have easily clicked a stupid 'Click here to scan your system' popup. I did have some kind of 'Internet Speed' program installed when they were through, but I deleted it and ran AV and Malware programs right away, and they didn't find anything out of the ordinary (low risk cookies).
Anyway, I thought maybe posting all the things I can remember might help someone with a quicker wit than me go: Aha! I know what that fool did, or is doing wrong. Thank you for any help you can give. :confused:
Oh! Another symptom that is either fixed, or masked by one of the above 'fixes' was IE was being hijacked and sites like smacchat.com and some flaky 'search' sites would come up. That's what made me go on the wild spyware removal rampage in the first place. Sorry, was up all night working on this, and sleep deprivation is taking its toll.
By no results, I mean nothing happens. It doesn't even try to load. I might as well be entering a blank, there's no activity at all. This is a different problem than when I sometimes actually log into Excite on another computer and it tells me I can't get there because of javascript or cookies. I can get to Excite on my other computer in IE and Firefox, but Firefox always tells me I can't get to my email, though it will let me go to excite.com and subsites.
To get an idea of what I've already done to fix this, I've run Adaware, Spybot S&D, AVG Antispyware, AVG Internet Security, Vundofix, Combofix, McAfee Stinger, Panda AntiRootkit, Trendmicro scanner, Hijackthis (self parsed), CCleaner, Ewido (pre-AVG), Smitfraudfix, Regcleaner, and a host of other more targeted solutions in hopes that it might be something beyond the capabilities of these relatively more broad based solutions.
A few of these scans come up with cookies that it quarantines, but nothing I haven't seen before. I'm starting to wonder if it's a virus/malware at all? The only major symptom seems to be inability to access Excite through IE, and (it could be attributed to running several virus/malware scans at once) the occasional explorer.exe crash, which self-resolves, or just requires a three-finger salute and running explorer.exe again in the Task Manager.
The only recent changes I can think of that might account for this is installing AVG Security, where it took over Windows Firewall duties. Also, a total noob was on my computer who could have easily clicked a stupid 'Click here to scan your system' popup. I did have some kind of 'Internet Speed' program installed when they were through, but I deleted it and ran AV and Malware programs right away, and they didn't find anything out of the ordinary (low risk cookies).
Anyway, I thought maybe posting all the things I can remember might help someone with a quicker wit than me go: Aha! I know what that fool did, or is doing wrong. Thank you for any help you can give. :confused:
Oh! Another symptom that is either fixed, or masked by one of the above 'fixes' was IE was being hijacked and sites like smacchat.com and some flaky 'search' sites would come up. That's what made me go on the wild spyware removal rampage in the first place. Sorry, was up all night working on this, and sleep deprivation is taking its toll.