Good day, When I click on internet explorer, there is a fairly long lag before a page displays. On the bottom left, it reads, detecting Proxy Settings. I am currently using a LAN. I have been trying to solve this problem for about a day (including reading one of the threads on this site). I have unticked the Automatically detect proxy settings, it does remove the lag but restrics my internet access, in that I cannot see a few webpages, and very few take a fairly long time to load. I would appreciate any further suggestions. Thank you for taking the time to read my enquiry. Regards, Yousif

Try this 1st . ( It may not apply ) Slow IE . 4) Better Than Rogaine http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-04-28.htm Start > Find > Files or folders , type into the top space > Hosts (no extension, just Hosts . Make sure you are in C drive ) & press Enter . You may have 2 hosts files , 1 is a sample ( SAM ) file . The other is associated to this > http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip http://technoerotica.net/mylog/hostfile.html SpyBot have a Host file list . http://beam.to/spybotsd If you would like to completely disable your Hosts file, rename it to "Hosts.txt". When you want to use it again, change it back to "Hosts". http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/how_to_use_hosts.html # in front of a line , means it is disabled . Windows 95/98/Me c:\windows\hosts Windows NT/2000/XP Pro c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts Windows XP Home c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (you may need administrator access for Windows NT/2000/XP) NOTE: Hosts is the name of the hosts file and not another directory name. It does not have an extension (extensions are the .exe, .txt, .doc, etc. endings to filenames) and so appears to be another directory in the example above. http://www.sover.net/~wysiwygx/Security1.html http://members.rogers.com/hfc/HostFileChecker.zip Host File Checker Searches through your System's Host file and removes duplicate entries from the Host file. Your Host file allows you to block sites of your choice by IP or name. Ensure that comments have been taken out of the Host File since it will most likely include that as part of the duplication check. ====================================== Another way to fix IE6 slow page load with XP . http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakxp/display.asp?id=958 ========================================== Internet Explorer 6 Starts Running Slow http://www.subdiv.net/articles/xp/xp3.htm ======================================= You may have a variation of the CoolWebSearch hijacker . Download and run the CWShredder Tool . http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html#cwshredder http://www.thespykiller.co.uk/ http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/ Run CWSHREDDER , check you have the current version , press check for update and let it update Close all browser windows , click on the cwshredder.exe then click "FIX" (Not "Scan only") and let it do it's thing . Make sure you follow the advice about the security updates listed at the bottom of the page , in order to prevent re-infection , otherwise you will be continually reinfected . Also download Spybot Search & Destroy by clicking here . http://beam.to/spybotsd Once you have the program installed, open SpyBot and select the "Immunize" icon on the left & cick Click on Immunize in the new page . Permanently running bad download blocker for Internet Explorer . Select > Block all bad pages silently & click Install . Then check the box "lock hosts file read-only as protection against hijackers". This will stop the program from modifying your "hosts" file again .

Johnw, Thank you for your fast reply, very much appreciated. I must admit, there was a lot of info in it, which I found extremely useful. Unfortunately, on the other hand, I have tried all the methods you specified, certain pages are still not loading. I have scanned my system with several products and these three in particular are detected by Xoftspy but I can't seem to remove them. Two are for Cool Web Search, the other is MSconnect. At this point, I would like to know what is the best action to take? I would be grateful for any suggestions or comments. Regards, Yousif

Hi Yousif, This is a bugger to get rid of. So perhaps you haven't taken the appropriate steps to correct the problem. Cool Web is very good at reinfecting a system if you haven't cleaned it properly. In most cases it's recommended you boot in safe mode (with no networking) to run the fixes, and rescan, refix as necessary (you may need to do this several times), then reboot normally and rescan again. How to Avoid infections HTH, J.

Jeruvy, Thanks a lot for your help, I found it very useful. Regards, Yousif

Glad to hear. J.