IE 6.0 - Search Engine redirected

[swollen_ostrich]

Hi everyone,

Ok here's my problem, I run Win 98SE and IE 6.0 at the moment. As the subject name implies I'm having a problem with search engines in that it always redirects me to "grabitfast.net" everytime I type in a search in Google or Yahoo. I have run spyware scanners such as Adaware and antivirus software (Trand Micro's internet scan, I do have PC-Cillin but it's from 2002) as well, picked up nothing at the moment. I've searched other forums and no one seems to have even heard of "grabitfast.net" and this is really starting to annoy me. I'll be checking my registry in the meantime. I'm kind of stumped now, any ideas from the wiser ones traversing these forums? :-(

 

[the_Prisoner]

I find spybot works better then adaware. try Spybot.

the Prisoner

I'm not a number, I'm a free man!

 

[Bardic]

Find your hosts files. There is a hosts.sam (sample file) and a hosts without an extension. open it up in wordpad or something and see if a whole bunch of web addresses are being redirected to grabitfast.net

Aside from the lines with # at the beginning, all you need is
--------
127.0.0.1 localhost
--------
Any others have probably been added by a spyware or virus, but cleaning the spyware won't repair the hosts file.

 

[phono_mas]

um, so how do you edit this hosts file? you can't do it in wordpad (just tried) - all that does is make it into a text file. i've been having the same prob. for months and would really like a solution to this annoying crap.

 

[Bardic]

Go into folder options (under tools or view) and go to the view tab and uncheck "hide extension for known file types"

Then you can take that .txt off the end of your hosts file.

there are other ways of doing it, but I always have the extension visible so I know what type of file I'm really opening.