I hate IE 6!!!

[jon_e_33]

OK, my parents Dell 2400 running XP Home is having problems with Internet Explorer 6. We have dial-up service, and the box that pops up when you open IE w/o being connected to the net is constantly popping up, even when you haven't touched explorer, IE, My computer or anything. I will be playing a game and it will pop up. The only time it doesn't show is when i'm connected to the net. What is going on?

Also, i'm pretty sure that it is IE causing the problem, because the box that pops up is not the same one that you get when you go to Start --> connect to: --> (internet connection).

(BTW, XP has all the updates prior to SP2.)

[Markoman01027]

Either " Never dial a connection" will work or " Dial whenever a network connection is not present"

[TheMajor]

you could have some spyware dialers. They want to connect all the time. Run Spybot S&D or something

[jon_e_33]

Spybot comes back clean except for the DSO Exploit glitch.

[TheMajor]

what's DSO Exploit?

[kev7555]

Data source object exploit. A hole in internet explorer that has not been repaired. It can be removed by Spybot but it returns just about every time you visit the internet.

-Kev

[TheMajor]

wow..that sucks
better use Opera

[Markoman01027]

Opera- you will get a browser with ads if you dont pay for it.

Get Mozilla Firefox. It's free and just as good as Opera and no ads. Great ad blocking aswell.

[mb26]

i second mozilla firefox. better to use, uses less resources, *way* more safe.

[Rick Hall]

The problem is not with IE6, millions are using it without problems (including me). I think that you either have spyware or a trojan or a worm or a virus on your machine. Something is telling your system to dial out.

[LindZ]

The popularity of IE is one of its greatest downfalls. It is because of its widespread use that hackers and the like target their trojan, worms, viruses etc. to attack IE users. Mozilla (firefox) is open source so any vulnerability that is discovered is VERY quickly patched and fixed by the open source community. Security updates for IE are generally not as quick and must be issued far more frequently than those for Mozilla. I highly encourage a switch even if it does not entirely solve your problems, as IE could still cause trouble by doing things on its own (software causing errors from beyond the grave... ). My 2 cents.

[jon_e_33]

I do normally use Opera 7.54, and sometimes firefox.

[GaryRouth]

You could install and run Zone Alarm to see exactly what is trying to dial out. glc posted a link to the 4.5 version (which seems to be currently recommended over version 5, which is having a few growing pains) in the Security forum: I'll paste it here for convenience: http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/fre...45_594_000.exe

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[slotzintin]

sounds like spyware. that's what you get for continuing to use internet explorer. Once the problem is solved I suggest you switch to firefox.

Grab:

- HijackThis
- AdAware Personal
- SpyBot search and Destroy


use HJT, http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html, and head on over to http://computercops.biz/forum67.html with your report (or any mainly antispyware forum with a hijackthis forum)

Run AdAware and download the latest update. Run under normal settings, fix as needed.

Run Spybot and download the latest update. Run under normal settings, fix as needed.

reboot into safe mode and repeat the last two steps.

[longrawker]

I'd like to add my vote for Firefox, I used to have that problem, ran Spyware S&D, and switched for Firefox, and the problem was no more. It hasnt come back at all, and that was about six months ago. I'd go with Firefox.