Dear Robin,

Thanks for replying.  Your english is very good.  I am not very good at all this and can't explain it properly.

My home page is set at "blank" and I can't get it to set at the home page I want.  It used to be set at something else but now it is set at "blank".  I have been into the "tools", internet options, general homepage.  Changed it to what I want it to be and pressed apply.  Then when I come out of it - it returns to about blank again.

Now the problem with this site.  When I go into my address bar on internet explorer and type in anything I want to find on the internet.  A whole list of web addresses come up.  They are all generated from this "smart finder" web site which is what I want to get rid of but can't.

It lists some normal sites then it starts listing porno sites etc which I do not want.  It says that it is endorsed by Microsoft, which I find hard to believe.  It also says that all the web addresses that use its site pay a fee to this smartfinder.  That is why it is so hard to uninstall.

My computer does not go directly to this site until I type something in the address bar on internet explorer.  It also says that this site was agreed to and accepted.  It does look like a normal site until you go into it then it starts getting horrible.  One of my kids could have put something in the address bar and got this site as a web broswer and agreed to it, not knowing what it contained.

I don't know who went into it first all I know is that I cannot uninstall it and I really want to.

I don't really know how to explain it any better as I don't understand it myself. I have never had this problem before not being able to uninstal something.

Even when I go into "add/remove programmes" from my main menu and click on remove, for this site, it goes to their page "Smartfinder" and says run this programme to uninstal.  This is the one that is restricted through my settings on the internet under restricted sites.  I have not restricted anything it is the setting that came with the p.c.

When I try to change the restricted settings for the internet it will not let me it just stays on "high" no matter what I do and then the programme will not run so I can't uninstal it without this programme.

It is all very confusing and I don't know what else to say to explain it any better as I am really confussed by it anyway.

If you can help at all I would be very grateful.

Thanks for your help so far.

cheers

Jennifer

Dear Janie,

You are an angel.  Thank you so much.  I have downloaded this site and "blank" has gone.  I am ever so grateful.  I did find the site hard to use as I am not an expert on the p.c. but when I switched on again my homepage had gone back to "google" and then I re-set it for what I wanted.

I will keep this on my p.c. now and put it on favourites so that I never loose it.

Once again thank you so very very much for all your help - you are a star!!!!!

cheers

Jennifer

Dear Robin,

thanks for replying again and trying to help me.

I have a Dell Dimensions p.c.  It was bought in Dec 02 so it is still under warranty until Dec 05.

I have already been through to Dell.  They will not help at all as it is a software problem and not a hardware problem.  I really found them very unhelpful and not at all nice.  This is the first time I have had a problem with p.c. that I have not been able to sort out myself and the first time I have gone to Dell.  That is how I found this website with people on it who will try and help which is really great.

Yes the p.c. is XP home edition.

Yes I have tried system restore but I am not sure when this thing downloaded and when I did systems restore it was still on.  Systems restore will only let me go back a few weeks and I need to go back further.

I think the only solution is to wipe the whole p.c. and start again.  I can't do this as I don't know enough about it and I don't want to mess everything up.  My hubby will be able to do it but he is away until next week end so I will have to wait for him to come home.

Somebody told me to just delete internet explorer and re-load it but it says to back up your registry and I don't know what that is or how to do it and if I try I might completely mess the p.c. up.

Anyway thanks again for all your help and advice.

cheers

jennifer

Dear Kyee

Thanks very much for the info.  I am not a confident user of the p.c. and I don't understand it all and it looks terribly complicated and it says not to do it unless you back up files and things.

I really don't feel that I can do it as I will mess up my p.c.

I am waiting till my hubby comes home and then he will completely wipe the p.c. and re-instal everything again and with any luck that site will be gone.

Thank you once again for the information but it is too hard for me to follow.

cheers

Jennifer

Jen: You might have your hubby look at the HJT solution. It is fairly easy to download , install, and run. If your system is indeed clean it will have been a good investment of a little time. If there are still some baddies lurking on the hard drive, it is much easier to do the steps as laid out by the responder to get rid of the problem(s).

Wiping the drive clean and starting over can be a pain, I am not sure if Dell still sends reinstall disks anymore and how many times this can be done. If the consensus is to do the scan, please post it on the HJT forum in a new thread. Good luck.