[Atkinson_291]

I was working on a friend's spyware infection which was so messed up that the Internet didn't work. I fixed it with the help of informed people like you. I thought it would be a good idea to scan and protect my own computer, so I ran all the same anti-spyware software on my own system. I detected and removed a few infections with Spybot (CoolWWWSearch, The Guardian, and Shop...something; no other programs detected anything). Now, I can't access any Internet sites in North America (I work in Korea, and Korean sites are fine). I was able to access www.cbc.ca last night, but as of this morning, it doesn't work either. After maybe 30 seconds of searching, it tries to resolve to the default search page, but that immediately fails.

I had already done everything listed in the what-to-do-before-you-post-anything-in-this-forum list BEFORE the problem hit, so I don't think that's the issue. I've since reversed all the changes the anti-spyware software made and uninstalled all of it with no improvement. I thought it might have something to do with my host file, so I searched for it, but couldn't find it, and having no Google or anything, I coudln't even look up where it was. I'm at work now, and will have to work at this from here until it's resolved.

Any clue? Have I got an over-zealous spyware guardian somewhere?

Thanks,
Atkinson