Computer Help

My computer dials the internet automaticly after booting up. It does not bring up a home page, only makes the connection This just started yesterday, all by itself. I have not made any changes to the system.
How do I stop this?
I am using Win XP Home SP1 with Firefox as my browser.
TIA
:hairpull:

Check your internet connection settings. go to control panel>internet options>connections and see if any settings are changed. Your browser may be set to a blank page for it's home page. Go to tools>options>general, and see what the home page is set to. I would run some spyware software to see if your computer has been infected. Ad-aware and Spybot are both free and very good. If your not running a firewall I would recommend Zone-alarm. It's free and also very good.

tiktok 22 said:

go to control panel>internet options>connections and see if any settings are changed.
Go to tools>options>general, and see what the home page is set to.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the fast reply.
I've never been to connections, so I don't know if anything has changed.
tools>options>general does not list a home page. Is this normal?

It's not clear whether your browser starts up or not. Not that it would help me.

I'd be a little nervous if my computer did this. You might also run Microsoft's antispyware beta.

I presume you have an anti-virus. If not you should get one. At this point you could also do a free on-line virus scan. Most vendors of anti-virus have a free on-line scan. This can be helpful in case your machine has been infected with something that disabled your anti-virus.

A dialer probably...

Like tiktok said Spybot and Ad-aware should solve that. HijackThis is also a very useful little thing with some problems if not resolved by them.

He also already mentioned Zone alarm and if you don't have an antivirus I would suggest AVG which comes in a free version for home users.

Sounds like you have spyware to me...

I did see the new MS spyware removal update mentioned before when I ran windows update...might try that...might work better than adaware.

JM-99

Thanks Guys.

eluminator said:

It's not clear whether your browser starts up or not. Not that it would help me.
I presume you have an anti-virus.

Click to expand...

No browser starts up. No window, for that matter. However, when I click my Firefox button, my browser pasge does come up.
I don't have an AV yet. I'm shopping for one now.

Goran said:

A dialer probably.
Spybot and Ad-aware should solve that. HijackThis is also a very useful little thing with some problems if not resolved by them.

Click to expand...

What is a dialer? I will try Spybot, Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, Snoopfree, SpywareBlaster, HijackThis, free version of Spyware Doctor and MS spyware removal.
:wow: I'm gonna be busy. I hope I can get through this. I'm a bit of a computer dummie.

Update: MS Spyware will not run for me. I get a "Your current browser cannot run the ActiveX control required by the genuine Windows validation process."
I don't understand that. I have ActiveX on Adobe.
Update#2. I used IE and that gives me an error message also.

Off to the next run.

A dialer is a program that dials a foreign toll number from your computer. The owner of the number collects big bucks and you're none the wiser until you realize what's up.

I might check the simple stuff first like what tiktok 22 was talking about.

control panel>internet options>connections

Mine is set to "Never dial a connection"

It should not be set to "Dial whenever a connection is not present"

tools>options>general

Should not be blank. You can set it to the current page, CPF, or a favorite/bookmark.

After that I would do as others have suggested. If you have a hijacker or a dialer HijackThis should find it. Most everyone responding here probably knows how to use it. It would be the last step I would do.

Icebreak said:

control panel>internet options>connections

Mine is set to "Never dial a connection"

Click to expand...

When I go to conrtol panel, it does not have an intrernet options button. Where else can I go?

sunspot said:

When I go to conrtol panel, it does not have an intrernet options button. Where else can I go?

Click to expand...

Using XP, make sure you're using "classic view" (left-hand panel in the Control Panel) and then you should be able to see "Internet Options"...

JM-99

This does sound like a spyware dialer.

Start--->Run--->MSCONFIG. Go to the STARTUP tab, deselect anything that looks suspicious and then reboot.

Icebreak said:

control panel>internet options>connections
Mine is set to "Never dial a connection"
It should not be set to "Dial whenever a connection is not present"

tools>options>general
Should not be blank. You can set it to the current page, CPF, or a favorite/bookmark.
It would be the last step I would do.

Click to expand...

I found the never dial a connection. When I use it, I can't dial to my ISP.
I also found my home page thingy. It is/was set for Firefox.
Keep em coming. I'll find something that works.

PhotonWrangler said:

This does sound like a spyware dialer.

Start--->Run--->MSCONFIG. Go to the STARTUP tab, deselect anything that looks suspicious and then reboot.

Click to expand...

I was able to get there but I don't know what is suspicious or not.
:thanks:

Sunspot, I've read thru your thread a couple of times and I see where you say you are going to try the suggestions people have made on AVG, Spybot, and Ad-Aware, but I don't see you say that you have done those three important things. Have you done all three? That is what you need to do next, IMHO. Sounds like a stereotypical porn-dialer to me.

I tried to run MS spyware removal and it would not run for me. Ditto on Spybot S&D and Spy Sweeper.
On the Spy Sweeper I got an "End Program-boiejh32.exe". It did detect a berbew trojan.
I'll try SpywareBlaster next.

sunspot said:

I tried to run MS spyware removal and it would not run for me. Ditto on Spybot S&D and Spy Sweeper.
On the Spy Sweeper I got an "End Program-boiejh32.exe". It did detect a berbew trojan.
I'll try SpywareBlaster next.

Click to expand...

If Spyware removal tools can't solve the problem just scan with HijackThis and than post a screen shot here if you are not sure what to do with it. The same for the msconfig thing...

sunspot said:

I found the never dial a connection. When I use it, I can't dial to my ISP.

Click to expand...

If you remove it you have to dial manually. It is - you have to establish a connection before opening the browser, it won't be done automatically... suppose that is the problem here... Well at least I can't think of a reason why by removing automatic connection the manual connection too would be disabled..

Sunspot, try AVG, then Ad-Aware.

You might want to try one of the online antivirus scans.

Using IE browser, click HERE and click on "Kaspersky Online Scanner" button for an online virus scan from Kaspersky Lab. This uses ActiveX, so it won't work from Firefox. Please note that this entails a download of over 6MB from the site due to the large virus definition file, but maybe worth it as Kaspersky Labs is probably the highest rated for catching malware.

For another online antivirus scan, click HERE for an online scan from Trend Micro Antivirus. This one isn't as highly rated, but should still be able to catch most malware.

Goran said:

If Spyware removal tools can't solve the problem just scan with HijackThis and than post a screen shot here if you are not sure what to do with it. The same for the msconfig thing...

Click to expand...

Yes. Do that. Or you could paste the scan. Just let us see the output and we can tell you what to checkbox for deletion.