My Internet Explorer was broken by nasty new spyware

DAS
Posts: 925
Joined: Tue 19 Aug, 2003 16.35
Location: The Kingdom of Leather

marksi wrote:I'm using Mozilla now, but it's just annoying me that IE is broken. It appears to have happened following installation of MSN7.0. Tried System Restore. Had no effect. This PC is only 6 weeks old, so relatively "clean".
Have you had a go at uninstalling and reinstalling IE? It's a bit tricky seeing as it's an essential program, but entirely possible if you follow the instructions properly. I've had to do that a couple of times thanks to a nice little bug whenever I've reformatted the PC and reinstalled the Blueyonder settings.

I'll probably have to do it again soonish because it randomly decides to crash when I try to visit TV Forum of all places.
Orry Verducci
Posts: 98
Joined: Sun 19 Dec, 2004 18.42
Location: Cambridgeshire

Firefox is a great browser but it can be a pain when IE stops working. When mine started playing silly buggers MSN 9 and loads of other things stopped working. The real pain I had was my dad moaning at me his Flight Sim did not work.
Chris
Posts: 845
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 19.03
Location: Surrey

TVDragon wrote:
Chris wrote:
TVDragon wrote:Indeed -- can't think of any reason why you would want Explorer back.
Because it does the job, doesn't take a fucking age to start up and doesn't have all sorts of bizarre anomalies associated with its operation such as disappearing bookmarks etc.

There's 3 reasons.
Well on my pc it loads in no more than 4 seconds -- perhaps it's because it's nowhere near full.

Never had disappearing anything -- indeed I've never had appearing anything either, such as the attacks I somehow got with IE.

Surely there's nothing stopping you opening more than one window -- tabs aren't compulsory.
For me, at least 15 - 20 seconds - this is on my new computer. Old one, give it a minute or so.

Unfortunately the majority I've seen people experiencing problems with IE (and I'm not saying this is in your case) are either due to the fact that they click "yes" or accept everything that pops up on screen and don't bother to read before installing, and so end up with this shite on their computer that they don't know how to get rid of.

Lack of reading again is another major factor in people getting adware/spyware/shite on their systems - I really do despair at those that have installed Messenger Plus with the adware program (there is an option not to install it and it is clearly marked in the installer) and winge about the fact that they now have this strange bar appear in IE, the fact that their search page has changed and that they keep getting tons of crappy popups. Message to those types of people: fucking read you twats before proceeding.

The final factor, and usually tied in with the above is that they haven't bothered to tie down their security settings in IE or bothered to patch their machines, so 'hackers' and purveyors of shiteware take advantage of them to install stuff onto people's machines. Again, there is the thing that people or their kids have visited porn/crack/lyrics/free mp3 sites and got this crap on their system and, well, deny all knowledge of it to try and make it look as if it happened "automatically".

I apologise if it sounds like I've got on my soapbox there, but I've seen it far too many times on various forums, IE user has a problem, and some Firefox "Jehovah's Witness" jumps it with his spiel about Firefox and tells them to get it ditch IE blah blah blah etc.

The thing they say in charity adverts in true to some extent - you can tell people how to use a computer properly and what is what, or you can ignore the problem in hand and work your way around it and tell them to use something else, much like you can give a handout of food to somebody in the third world that will tide them over, or you can give them seeds and tools and tell them to be self sufficient and teach them how to use them properly.

Whether you like it or not, IE is a core part of Windows as quite a few programs rely on it to some extent.
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marksi
Posts: 1892
Joined: Wed 07 Jan, 2004 05.38
Location: Donaghadee

DAS wrote:
marksi wrote:I'm using Mozilla now, but it's just annoying me that IE is broken. It appears to have happened following installation of MSN7.0. Tried System Restore. Had no effect. This PC is only 6 weeks old, so relatively "clean".
Have you had a go at uninstalling and reinstalling IE? It's a bit tricky seeing as it's an essential program, but entirely possible if you follow the instructions properly. I've had to do that a couple of times thanks to a nice little bug whenever I've reformatted the PC and reinstalled the Blueyonder settings.

I'll probably have to do it again soonish because it randomly decides to crash when I try to visit TV Forum of all places.
Not done that. Yet. I'm in a mood with it now so I think it's best I leave it until I have calmed down!
johnnyboy
Posts: 838
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 14.57
Location: The Home of the Stottie

Firefox, although a nice system, also grinds my computer to a halt too.

Try Opera - by far the best browser I've ever used.
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marksi
Posts: 1892
Joined: Wed 07 Jan, 2004 05.38
Location: Donaghadee

Will give Opera a go - Firefox seems to work ok on my desktop machine but it does slow down the laptop quite a bit.

Edit: Tried Opera, it has nasty adverts. Yuk.
cat
Posts: 513
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.48
Location: The Magic Faraway Tree

One of my flatmates told me yesterday that after installing the new MSN her Internet Explorer fooked itself, so that will probably be the problem.

She managed to uninstall it (impressive, given her computer skills) and it worked fine again, so may be worth trying that if you've not already.

When I used Windows, I used to have Neoplanet. Anyone remember that? I think it worked on Internet Explorer's system, but it looked fantastic and was so easy to use. You can't download it any longer, which is a real shame. It was the most functional, easy to use browser I've ever come across.
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marksi
Posts: 1892
Joined: Wed 07 Jan, 2004 05.38
Location: Donaghadee

Thanks cat. It did indeed happen after installing MSN7, however I've tried uninstalling that and it's made no difference. I've "repaired" XP from the installation disk, I've run a "fix" for what appears to be exactly the same problem, but it still doesn't work.

So I've given up for now. I'll use Firefox and perhaps when IE7 appears during the summer that will fix it. Or maybe it won't.
DJGM
Posts: 528
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 15.39
Location: Manchester
Contact:

cat wrote: When I used Windows, I used to have Neoplanet. Anyone remember that? I think it worked on IE's
system, but it looked fantastic and was so easy to use. You can't download it any longer, which is a
real shame. It was the most functional, easy to use browser I've ever come across.
NeoPlanet was essentially a third party skinnable "wraparound" browser GUI which used the IE rendering engine.
IIRC it also had a built-in e-mail client plus IM program of sorts, making it more like an internet application suite
similar to the (now effectively discontinued) Netscape 7.x series and the Mozilla Application Suite.

There was a (very) short lived Mozilla/Gecko plugin for NeoPlanet, which allowed you to switch between the
rendering engines of IE/Trident and Mozilla/Gecko. Unfortunately, this was at a time when the Gecko was in
a state so buggy that it far from ready for prime time, so much so, you wouldn't think it was same
(heavily updated since then) engine that forms the basis of the popular Mozilla Firefox browser.

BTW . . . although no longer being developed, NeoPlanet is still available at
. . . http://browsers.evolt.org/?neoplanet/ . . .
Jamez
Banned
Posts: 2587
Joined: Sun 30 May, 2004 23.02
Location: Bristol

I'm now using the Avant browser and really is the best thing since sliced bread!

Runs like a dream on my ageing PC! :lol:
DJGM
Posts: 528
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 15.39
Location: Manchester
Contact:

Jamez wrote: I'm now using the Avant browser and really is the best thing since sliced bread!

Runs like a dream on my ageing PC! :lol:
Avant Browser - another "wraparound" browser GUI that uses the IE/Trident engine, which adds Mozilla
style functionality such as tabbed browsing, but is subject to all the exact same security pitfalls as IE.
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