Hi Pat, he is the victim of browser hijacking or a hacker has infected his computer. I have this info an a web page as well; http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/Homepage_Hijacking.html Here is a list of program that I have found that work well to help remove or prevent Hijacking. The program descriptions come from the web sites, and is more detailed than what I have provided here. Ad-aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ Ad-aware Standard Edition is THE award winning, free*, multicomponent detection and removal utility that consistently leads the industry in safety, user satisfaction, support and reliability. With its ability to comprehensively scan your memory, registry, hard, removable and optical drives for known datamining, aggressive advertising, and tracking components, Ad-aware will provide the user with the confidence to surf the Internet knowing that their privacy will remain intact. Let Ad-aware protect your privacy. ________________________________________________ Browser Parasite List http://allentech.net/parasite/list.phtml Below is a list of all browser parasites currently in our database. Click on any parasite name to see the full information we have available. Please note that filenames, registry keys and paths sometimes change faster than we can keep up, so your system may vary from the information we present here. ________________________________________________ "Homepage Hijacking" a form of spyware. http://tiemdesign.com/features/hijacking.htm You have been surfing all over the web for hours and hours, you close your browser and take a break. You come back to your PC a few hours later and fire up your browser. Wait a minute! That isn't my home page! What happened to my home page? You realize that your normal home page is no longer there and some new page is there and pop-up ads start appearing from out of no where, even when your browser is closed. ________________________________________________ HijackThis 1.97.6 http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3D3155 HijackThis, a general homepage hijackers detector and remover. Initially based on the article Hijacked!, but expanded with almost a dozen other checks against hijacker tricks. It is continually updated to detect and remove new hijacks. It does not target specific programs/URLs, just the methods used by hijackers to force you onto their sites. As a result, false positives are imminent and unless you are sure what you're doing, you should always consult with knowledgable folks (e.g. the forums) before deleting anything. ________________________________________________ Spybot - Search & Destroy http://spybot.eon.net.au/ Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer. Spyware is a relatively new kind of threat that common anti-virus applications do not yet cover. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you didn't intentionally install, if your browser crashes, or if your browser start page has changed without your knowing, you most probably have spyware. But even if you don't see anything, you may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging that is silently tracking your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile of you that will be sold to advertisement companies. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's no harm in trying to see if something snooped into your computer, too :) ________________________________________________ SpywareBlaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html SpywareBlaster doesn't scan and clean for spyware - it prevents it from ever being installed. By setting a "kill bit" for spyware ActiveX controls, SpywareBlaster can prevent the installation of any spyware ActiveX controls from a webpage. It does this while not interfering with "friendly" ActiveX controls - so your browser can work correctly and you can have peace of mind! ________________________________________________ SpywareGuard 2.2 http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html SpywareGuard is compatible with: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP SpywareGuard provides a real-time protection solution against spyware that is a great addition to SpywareBlaster's protection method. An anti-virus program scans files before you open them and prevents execution if a virus is detected - SpywareGuard does the same thing, but for spyware! And you can easily have an anti-virus program running alongside SpywareGuard. SpywareGuard now also features Download Protection and Browser Hijacking Protection! ________________________________________________ StartPage Guard 2.2 mwn #705 http://www.securityconfig.com/software/cookie/startpage_guard_2.2.html StartPage Guard (SPG) protects your PC from cyberscam, by detecting and preventing any unauthorized changes to your internet browsers Start and Search pages. It is also capable of removing automatically most of known invaders. Malicious programs (viruses, trojans, backdoors, etc.) sometime change the StartPage to gain the ground. Spywares use this way to invade users privacy by tracking destinations which user visited, and collecting personal information. In some cases this activity may be totally transparent to the user. But most often this is just plain annoyance when start page is changed without asking users permission. SPG effectively deals with all this problems, making surfing the net safer, more secure, and by reducing frustaration - more fun. _______________________________________________ WinPatrol http://www.winpatrol.com/ Supports Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT and XP WinPatrol will sniff out Worms, Adware, Spyware, Cookies, Trojan horses and other virus type, malicious, nasty programs that may attack your computer. WinPatrol puts you back in control of your computer with no need for constant updates. ________________________________________________ Mac's Spyware page; http://www.keyboardpower.com/spyware.htm See my Spyware article from ABC here; http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc2/v18/mike18.htm Mike ~ one of the Moderators It is a good day if I learned something new. Editor MikesWhatsNews http://www.mwn.ca/ *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 21/01/2004 at 9:21 PM =A7Pat=A7 wrote: I hope I can explain this....my friend who is 70 yrs old plays games on Pogo. Everytime he clicks on the shortcut to go to Pogo he gets this popup stating his computer is being tracked ..yadda yadda yadda...then his CD rom drawer pops open scaring the poor man to death..he has a popup blocker but this always manages to get through...I then have to go back in to IE tools..internet options and put his home page back to what he wants...this may last 2 days and then the process starts all over again...........all the poor old man wants is his email and his games on Pogo. Any suggestions how to stop this from changing his home page and that darn popup from opening his CDrom drawer (other than leaving it open) . Pat "Inside every older woman is a young girl wondering what the hell happened." -Cora Harvey Armstrong- http://www.duirwaighgallery.com/inspirat ion_trailer.htm http://wonderofitall.com/ To unsub or change your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk To access our Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/ //www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/ For more info: //www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=pctechtalk