I cannot load any of the major search engine web sites. If I type in
google.com it hangs the status bar states auto searching msn... then I
get a web site can not be found. I found winpup32 and navexcel on the
PC both have been removed. I have scanned with every virus utility
(norton,pccillin,mcafee,bitdefender,fprot...). I have scanned with
spyware programs like adaware. I test as being clean of any
virus,malware or trojans. But... I still cannot load a search page! I
cannot use the keyboard shortcut CNT ENTER to add www and .com in the
address bar. What do I have an how can I get rid of it?

---

Clarification of Question by dezenutz-ga on 09 Oct 2003 09:42 PDT

http://forums.techguy.org/t169552/s.html
worked except for not being able to control+enter to add www and .com
in the address bar

---

Request for Question Clarification by serenata-ga on 09 Oct 2003 17:23 PDT

Hi, Dezenutz ~

We just found something that would work (Highjack This' CWS Shredder)
in another instance very similar to yours.

None of the other things, such as Ad Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy,
etc., would get rid of the problem, so the client went here:

   - http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/cws/

and tried the download for the CWS Shredder.

The question, which took a lot of time trying to work with suggestions
back and forth, can be found here:

   - http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=262802

It might be worth a try.

Serenata

---

Clarification of Question by dezenutz-ga on 11 Oct 2003 17:59 PDT

I have tried adaware (custom search every location),search and destroy
and cws shredder. Only seach and destroy found some additional
"suspect" files that adaware missed. The techguy forums solution
seemed to work best. There is one thing that still bothers me. I
cannot CNTL+ENTER when entering a name in the IE address bar to
automatically add www & .com. I use this shotcut all the time! Because
I cannot use this shortcut I feel that something is still suspect with
IE. What should I do to fix IE's shortcut functions?

I got this email from navexcel:
To Whom It May Concern:

Thank you for your email message.  I hope this message finds you doing
well.

Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay in responding to 
your email message.  Our software, NavHelper, can be completely and 
cleanly uninstalled by using your Control Panel's 'Add/Remove
Programs'
feature.  If you still have problems with uninstalling NavHelper, then
I
would like to schedule a brief online chat with you to diagnose and
solve
the problems you are encountering.  As a result, I would greatly 
appreciate it if you can please (1) provide me with a date and time
that will
be most convenient for you to have such a conversation with me, (2) 
which instant messenger you prefer using (e.g. ICQ, MSN Messenger,
Yahoo
Messenger, etc.), and (3) your instant messenger ID (e.g. ICQ Number,
MSN ID, Yahoo ID, etc.).  We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience
NavHelper may have caused you.

Please rest assured, NavHelper is NOT spyware or adware and our 
software DOES NOT install itself on unsuspecting Internet users'
computers.
Please note that if an unresolvable alphanumberic sequence of
characters
is entered into Internet Explorer's address bar, then NavHelper serves
related Google Sponsored Search Results, that's it!  Nothing more, 
nothing less.  NavHelper is bundled with third party software products
and
we require all of our distribution partners to clearly disclose the 
fact that NavHelper is being bundled with their own software.  Please
note
that NavExcel DOES NOT encourage or tolerate "drive by" downloads.  If
you believe you are the victim of a "drive by" download, then I would
greatly appreciate it if you can please help us by providing us with
the
name of the software product with which our product was bundled with
so
that we can initiate an immediate investigation.  Again, we sincerely
apologize for any inconvenience NavHelper may have caused you.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or 
concerns.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.  Thank you.

NavExcel Support
support@navexcel.com

Go to LavaSoft's site ( http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ ) and download the
free version of AdAware.  This will cleanse your machine of spyware,
adware and other junk that may be hijacking or otherwise polluting
your system.

Also, you may want to check for the presence of a file called
hosts.txt on your system - it is a text file that can be used to
redirect domain names.  It can be a culprit in situations like these,
too.

Check \windows\hosts in Notepad, it may redirect the search engines to
a specific IP.  Just delete the offending lines, save and reboot.  It
does not have a .txt extension.

Internet Explorer - Tools - Options - Connections - LAN Settings
disable automatic scripts/proxies.
but you may need to reenable if you use DSL.

I have been tortured by being redirected to star.search every time I
use google - and star search is useless! Where google has pages of
sites on my topic star search has 1 or 2 items and they all go to
their site. Needless to say I didn't like this. I tried adaware,
spyremover, etc. to no avail. Checked my hosts file and no new entries
are there either. Finally I tried somthing really simple. Since it
seems the DNS entry is being redirected I entered Google's IP address
instead of the domain name. Bingo! I now get the google search pages
and not star search. If I put the domain name www.google.com and then
enter a search it still goes to star search - so I use the IP address
only now (set to home page too). If you are being redirecteded try
this:
1. Enter http://216.239.57.99 (google's IP addr)
2. Bookmark it as google
3. Return to your bookmarked google page and try searching now.
Did that work for anyone else?