I use Windows 98 and when I had the QHosts and hijacked homepage problems, my Internet Explorer's Search button also didn't work, and I get a System Administrator notice about QHost when accessing Altavista.com and Google.com. For your reference, here is how I fixed the hijacked homepage and malware problems. You will need to modify the steps appropriate for Windows 95 or XP.
To Fix QHost, hijacked homepage, IE Search button, and Altavista web access problems:
1) Do a Find of all qhost files. I had only two: Hosts.sam and Hosts.
2) I added the word "old" to the two file names before the extension and renamed both files to: Hostsold.sam and hostsold.
3) Restart PC and problems fixed.
Note: If you need to, you could access your homepage by typing your homepage address in the Start, Run dialog box
Virus and malware Removal:
Install and run an updated antivirus and anti-ad programs. Two recommended free programs:
1 Free scan at www.housecall.antivirus.com and then download and run the most recent microtrend's systemclean program.
2. Download the latest free Adaware 6.0 Build 181. One way to get it is from Start, Run, type, www.adaware.notlong.com
However, even after running the most up-to-date antiviral and ad removal programs, I still had to manually remove malware and popups after running these programs.
To fix malware and popups manually after running anti-ad and virus removal programs:
Try my response in Response #3, Subject: Popup plague =Hijack? help please
or
try this link to the response page, http://computing.net/security/wwwboard/forum/11772.html to the page.
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