Recently, for some strange reason, my homepage has been set to www.clearfind.com. I have never been to this site before. When I try changing the homepage through the tools/internet options menu the area is greyed out. What the hell is going on? Anybody have any ideas?

some good info at these sites; http://gmpservicesinc.com/Articles/hijack.asp http://www.fjsmjs.com/IE/homepage.htm http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q323869 and get spybot at http://security.kolla.de/ get ad-aware at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/

Unless this system is administered by someone other than yourself, a website or program has probably changed your homepage for you. If you have admin privileges it is entirely possible that this program was clever and used policy settings to block you altering it. I would change the setting in the Windows registry. If you have never done this, search on google for a guide. Screwing up the registry is screwing up your computer. Here is the registry key under which my start page is located. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main This key contains a lot, look for Start Page and you should find www.clearfind.com. Modify the value to your preference ("about:blank" is a blank page). Also, if you are running XP Pro (my XP Home copy does not have this), use gpedit.msc in your run command line. Group Policy editor may contain an option to restrict IE options. You can surely find a tutorial on gpedit.msc on google as well. And finally, get Spybot Search&Destroy at http://security.kolla.de. Run it and see if you find anything you do not want on your computer.

Have a good read at http://doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html also run latest version of Adaware from Lavasoft, it removed some of the junk. Good luck.

Also visit spywareinfo.com for lotsa info and good forum

Thank you for your help. I went into the registry and I was able to change the homepage although the area is still greyed out. I also installed adaware and got no help from that software. Thanks again.