When I do a search (for anything), the browser redirects me to a new page, usually an advertisement. How do I keep this from happening?

Question

My home page opens just fine. When I type a search topic in the search box, it goes to the list of possible websites. But when I click on any of those choices, the browser is automatically redirecting my to a different page (usually an advertisement). How do I keep this from happening any more? I am extremely frustrated...

Answer 1

Do a malware check with some malware scan programs.<br />
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.<br />
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of the database before doing a scan.<br />
* http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
* http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
* http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
* http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
* http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - Ad-Aware Free
See also "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked and [[Searches are redirected to another site]]
There are other things that need attention:
Your above posted system details show outdated plugin(s) with known security and stability risks that you should update.
*Next Generation Java Plug-in 1.6.0_16 for Mozilla browsers
Update the [[Java]] plugin to the latest version.
*http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html (Java Platform: Download JRE)