Google is screwing up?

[pacmania_2001]

I am running IE6 and Windows XP SP1 and recently when I visit either www.google.com or www.google.com.au the display has been screwing up.

Take for example at the moment on Google Australia it is showing up like a little blue and white flag.

Does anyone know what is causing this or is getting a similar page? At first I thought it may have been a virus or a piece of spyware however I did a search using AVG and also Ad Aware and no viruses or spyware showed up.

[Gees]

I just tried it and, no problems. Have you emptied the cache lately? I get all sorts of bizarre things happening when I forget to do it.

I read keeping it below 80 stops problems.

[pacmania_2001]

Emptied my cache, still didn't help. I am baffled to explain what is causing it.

Thanks for the help though and keep those suggestions coming.

[Solarjetman]

It works for me as well. Could you post a screenshot maybe? Is it only google acting up? Sometimes fault video drivers can distort things such as icons. But if its only google, that is not the problem.

[twodogs]

pacmania, fixed similar problem a couple of nights ago on a mates PC.

firstly, does it happen to all search engines? teoma, altavista, etc ?
secondly, from a command prompt, ping www.google.com.au You should get 216.239.53.99 . If you get 69.57.xxx.xxx etc then your DNS is screwed.

(to get to google, you can put http://216.239.53.99/ in your browser)

if all the above happens, try this:
1) Symantec Qhosts trojan removal tool: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.qhosts.removal.tool.html

but may not reveal anything

2) install MS security patch
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-040.asp

3) follow steps here:
http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus_k=100719

i think I also deleted a directory called c:\bdgsa or something foreign that resembled that which had just appeared.

By the way, adaware, spybot and pccillin all failed to detect the trojan on my mates PC too.

[pacmania_2001]

Thanks for the help all.

Thought I would post my solution to it: formatting the C:

I tried the QHost removal program after reading a few other posts with the same symptoms but alas still no solution so it was just quicker to do it this way, plus it was due for a reinstall of WinXP soon anyway.

[BJ_M]

i had this -- it was a hidden hosts file in windows help directory ... yep virus thingy ... was easy to fix .

[pacmania_2001]

@BJ_M

Did you just delete the hosts file?

What was the name of it do you know?

[BJ_M]

yes -- i deleted all hosts files except the default one (and opened it in notepad and checked it) . i found 3 (default plus one in help directory and one in system32 - both of those directories are "higher" priority than etc directory.

this is default in (C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts):

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost

the 2 other BAD ones had all seach engines listed and redirected to other locations

you can do this yourself

add this line

www.google.com www.cnn.com

and then reboot and click on google

after fixing host files -- you have to reboot ...


now i started using a virus program (i rairly did before) andgoogle bar which one of the options is to lock certain settings ..

that fake hosts file is added via a script from some web sites btw -- not only a virus ...

[Faustus]

Yeah I had that one. After all these years that one made my pratice what I preach and install AVG Antivirus.