What You Do If Your Home Page Is Hijacked

Since October 2004, I have received a few emails and phone calls from people who have had the misfortune of having their home pages hijacked. Each said that something called Enhance My Search has replaced his/her home page with the Enhance website or something. Personally, I have never seen this particular website and I do not know who they are. But I researched this on Google to see that others have been affected by them.

One person I found on Google recommended a fix that worked for him. I recommended it to those who contacted me, but no one told me if it actually worked. Of course, if it didn't, they probably would have complained some more. But I didn't want to post the fix here unless/until someone told me it worked. I couldn't test it myself since I didn't have the problem and could not duplicate it.

If your computer had its home page changed to Enhance My Search, you may have tried AdAware or Spybot to correct this without success. Stephen Smith tried the freeware download at MajorGeeks.com and has verified that it worked for him. Thank you, Stephen, for testing this for me. I hate to recommend anything I haven't personally tried, but I had no choice. I use Norton Systemworks, AdAware and Spybot regularly, but I may not have been to the website that these people have visited to get the search installed.

I suspect that these people did a search on a regular search engine such as Google, clicked a link and the domain name for the link was no longer in use. A company like Enhance My Search will take over domain names or use redirects to force you to see their website instead AND change your computer's home page setting. I absolutely hate adware, spyware and programs that make changes without user knowledge or consent. We should not have to go through the trouble of installing antivirus programs, firewalls, antispyware and popup blocker programs.

Since there are bad people in the world that will continue to hijack your computer, you must be careful. Know how to prevent most problems, but if you do get one, know where to look for a solution. I like freeware, because it is free, but also because it was probably tried by someone else who can recommend it. If you ever have a problem, research it and look for someone who had the same problem and solved it.

Yvette Kuhns, Power Pages Web Design, January 25, 2005

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