IE 5.5 settings

[Relztrah]

One of the old clunkers running Win 95 and IE 5.5 where I work had obviously been infected with crapware or malware or something. I couldn’t see any Web page. The home page was changing back to some search engine, etc. I could not even access the PCGuide Website, ditto MajorGeeks or anywhere else.

In desperation I tried to do SOMETHING so that I could download some diagnostic or removal tools.

I went into Tools>Internet Options>Connections>LAN settings and noticed that Use a Proxy Server was checked, with an address there. Now I don’t normally mess with these settings since I don’t know what I’m doing at this point, but on another old clunker running Win 95 with IE 5.5 I noticed that Use a Proxy Server was UNCHECKED.

So I figured what do I have to lose at this point since I can’t even get on-line and unchecked it. Now everything seems fine. I am still going to load and run SpyBot, Ad-Aware, Spyware Blaster, and check for viruses. But can the fix be that easy? Did a piece of spyware or malware automatically set it to default to a proxy server? I don’t even know what a proxy server is, and like I mentioned previously, I don't normally change these settings.

Thanks,
Relztrah

[rik148755]

Do you use a proxy server?

Have you checked other pc's to see if that setting was set?

Maybe just glitch, but at least its sorted now.

Horray for Win95!

[Relztrah]

This was apparently a spyware issue and I have begun a separate thread titled "Yet another infection" in the Applications and Security forum. Sorry, I don't know what a proxy server is. We have a peer-to-peer network here with cable Internet coming into the building, from there to a router and several hubs. Does that mean we use a proxy server? Excuse my ignorance of these matters.

Relztrah

[PrntRhd]

webopedia (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/proxy_server.html)

Actually you do not have a proxy server unless someone installed one.