Google was set as my automatic search engine and until recently always
appeared when I logged onto internet. However, now it does not -
another has suddenly appeared and going the internet
options route of restoring Google only brings a temporary change.How
do I permantly restore Google?

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 13 May 2004 21:19 PDT

Sounds as if you've been "hijacked."

It would be very helpful to know the name and/or URL of the new search
engine that is showing up now. There are tools for fixing this sort of
problem, but it's useful to know exactly what we're dealing with.

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Clarification of Question by kerry118-ga on 14 May 2004 06:45 PDT

Thks your reply. searchpage.htlm
Regards

I would like to inform you that this type of redirection takes place
if you have visited certain websites, which will automatically force
these kinds of changes. As I can understand from your email this is
happening from the last few weeks this could be due to spyware also.

I request you to visit the following link to get to know more about spyware:

http://www.spychecker.com/spyware.html

Also I would request to install ad-aware by visiting the following link:

http://www.lavasoft.de/

Your specific problem can be handled by a program called "HijackThis"

I found detailed instructions from a nice person at
http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/157485.html

(quoted text)
-------------
1. DL Hijack This and install it:
http://download.com.com/3000-8022-10227352.html?tag=lst-0-3

2. Click on Scan

3. Select the registry String Value that defines your start page: in
my case it was listed twice as: R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Main,Start Page =
mk:@MSITStore:C:\WINDOWS\start.chm::/start.html

4. click on "Fixed Checked"
It will not delete the String Value but set it as
"C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\blank.htm" (IE default page if no website set as
start page)

5. Make sure you "fix" both start page string values

6. close all IE windows

7. go into Internet properties and set your start page