Computer question...

[gonzo1510]

I have recently noticed that when I go to some of my usual websites (this one or O.com etc.) I get re-directed to yahoo. It will go on for a day, sometimes it takes two or sometimes I click on the link and it will work fine. Has anyone else had this happen to them ? And how was it resolved ? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Irving.

[Bill Warnock]

I have recently noticed that when I go to some of my usual websites (this one or O.com etc.) I get re-directed to yahoo. It will go on for a day, sometimes it takes two or sometimes I click on the link and it will work fine. Has anyone else had this happen to them ? And how was it resolved ? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Irving.

I had this happen to me. After I installed AVG FireWall it stopped.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[N. A. Corbier]

Download current antivirus definitions. Download AdAware SE from a trusted source (heh) like download.com or tucows.com. Install AdAware SE and allow it to remove "spyware and malware."

It sounds like one of three things.

1. Spyware redirecting your browser to yahoo (no CLUE why...)
2. Yahoo Toolbar interfering...
3. Your browser is set to the "fail to find site" page to go to yahoo.com

[gonzo1510]

so should I disable my yahoo toolbar ?

[Curtis Baillie]

I experienced the same thing with a Yahoo toolbar. I don't remember how, but somewhere along the line I must of clicked on it and it downloaded. I removed it and everything was OK after that. Same thing with Explorer 7.

[gonzo1510]

I just deleted the toolbar so I will see if that solves the problem...

[hrdickinson]

If that doesn't work, you might try Adaware (as opposed to adware) from Lavasoft at www.lavasoft.com It's free for personal use. I run it every few days and it finds more things than Norton finds, including browser hijackers.

[SIW Editor]

Avast! (free) and Windows Defender (free) should be required on any computer with a network connection that is used freely to navigate on the Net and use email. Malware/Adware on your computer will often try to renavigate you from the site you want to the place they want you to go.

Keep in mind that SIW does have downtime (nope, we don't have as many back-up devices as a site like eBay or Amazon), and even .01% downtime (99.99% uptime) means we'd be down for a total of 87.6 hours each year. So keep trying. If we are down, sometimes you will end up in your default search provider (yahoo, google, msn, for example). We have numerous mirrored servers, but downtime will happen with any site (yes, even eBay).

[N. A. Corbier]

Norton, Avast!, McAffee, AVG, and others are anti-virus software programs. Most of them do not detect malware, and the manufacturers suggest you use their (sometimes integrated) Anti-Spyware solution.

Adaware (thank you) SE is free. Windows Defender is free, but only runs on some operating systems, requires Genuine Windows (which means that if your legit copy of XP failed WGA, you don't get it), and has not been as proven as effective as some of the older programs out there.

Its sad that you have to run a minimum of an anti-spyware, anti-virus, and firewall solution just to get on the internet, but its a fact of life.

Here at home, we have an edge server which handles the problems of firewall and anti-virus. All traffic into and out of the DSL modem goes to the edge server first, which runs ClamAV on the traffic to detect viruses. It slows the internet down a little, but it means that we don't have to run AV software on each computer in the house.

I prefer these edge appliances (I made my own with Ubuntu Linux and a lot of tinkering) over installing anti-virus software on the clients, because this means that you don't require 300 client updates at your site, nor do you have to worry about Joe Idiot in Marketing turning his copy of Norton off cause it slows his PC down.