I have a computer that Stuart, I think put together for me, It is running Win 7, I use FF and my broser of choide is Google .
And I use AVAST, A week or so ago, all of a sudden an anti virus program called Byte Fence showed up
And it kep wanting me to buy it, At the same time Yahoo showed up as my default browser, Friends on FB peovied som
links to get rid of it I had my hubby do that because of my vision problems (found the magnify option and now I can
post here. After several tries, it seems that he found all of it and removed it, And he got Google back for me
I then went to use it and I got my Google list, but when I clicked on the link I wanted, I got
the server is refusing proxy server, I dont use a proxy, I don t even know how, we looke for things and then my hubby was able
to get it to work by using a bookmark, He had tried that before and it didnt work, Last night everything seemed
back to normal, Earlier tonight, things ere working, Now the the proxy server crap is back,
I have no idea what is happenning,m I had done a search and gotten results. Not what I needed, ed
When I cam back, my new search had run into the proxy issue
I really need to get to a stie tomorrow to sign up for a show,
Thanks
Sounds like you have some persistent malware that’s redirecting your internet traffic.
Two tools I use are “SpyBot,” download links: Spybot 2.4 Download - Spybot Anti-Malware and Antivirus : Spybot Anti-Malware and Antivirus
and Malwarebytes: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/
you may do better to download these from a non-problematic computer and put them on a thumb drive - “smart” malware will block your connection to legit removal sites.
Once you have them set up, and updated, it often works better to disconnect from the Internet while they scan. This helps keep the malware on your computer from “phoning home” for help.
I have used both those tools in the past several years to clean my kids’ and in-laws’ computers. They both have paid versions but the free versions have worked for me.
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I thought I h MalwareBytes but I can t find it, On an old computer, I could download it but it wouldn t
let me name the file MalwareByted, I think I ended up naming it Malibu ware Bythe, I managed to get the show app
downllosded and filled out I will see if I can get those 2 on flash drive
Thanks
In addition to those, install “ublock origin” as a chrome browser extension. It is the most effective ad stopper I have ever seen. it stops the ads that malwarebytes does not…
But I use FF as my brower, I know a lot of folks like chrome, but I have never used it,
A few things are going on here, one you have a trojan installed. Most likely several of them by now along with a few hidden backdoors. No amount of “fixing” at this point will help one has to do a factory reset.
As for ad blocking, Ad Block Plus has always been a good adware blocker for firefox/edge/chrome, but above all MVPS hosts list has always been my goto since it blocks adware and malware at the os level instead of just solely the browser level. (malware use thier own “browser” not the one you install or comes with your OS).
Also, Avast and just about 99.9% freeware anti-malware apps are utter crap. Anytime someone came into my shop I’d instantly run Hitman Pro then install http://www.immunet.com/. Hitman pro cleans damn near everything and immunet is powered by clamav (server level anti-malware). But in the end one pays for what they get, symantec and norton are always going to be the best choices from a clean install.
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At this point I’d advocate for cleaning the computer off, backing up the data you want to keep, and doing a clean install.
There are many ways malware gets onto a computer but it usually boils down to bad clicks or bad ads when surfing and bad clicks on attachments or links in emails. You must keep your computer software 100% patched and up to date and block the bad crap that’s out there.
On my personal computers I run the following:
The PSI software will tell you when you have software that needs to be updated. UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE. 
The others will block possibly malicious ads and possibly damaging Adobe Flash elements on web pages.
Out of date browsers, OS patches, Adobe Flash and PDF Reader, and other software leaves you with software vulnerabilities that attackers just love to exploit. Keeping your software up-to-date will help keep those holes closed and using browser extensions to block ads and Flash software elements will help keep new, unpatched vulnerabilities from being exploited on your computer.
Privacy Badger helps keep you from being tracked on the web for receiving targeted ads. I installed that after surfing Amazon and looking up the newest Weird Al album and suddenly seeing ads for it all over Facebook. That just ticked me off.
For scanning your computer you’ll want to use the following (in order):
Rootkit finders:
- McAfee Stinger
- Kaspersky TDSS Killer
Free web AV scan:
Spyware Killers:
- Spybot Search and Destroy
- Malwarebytes
- Hitman Pro
Run the spyware killers from regular mode and if your Windows has it - Safe Mode too since that will keep some of it from running and allow the software to find more of that garbage stuff.
Man… people who write that 
should have a special place in hell and the folks who write software to ferret it out should get a huge amount of karma points.
RJ
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since this is a computer that Stuart put together for me, Will I need to find a copy of windows 7 for it? I am a very thigh
budget due to all the medical stuff in the summer, Is this something I can do myself?
I used to have my hubby so such things but it seems the strokes caused some issue for hin
in following a set of instruction