ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: As a non-geek and an old one at that, I really enjoy your column, and I’m glad to know I can access some of your past columns on the web.  A few weeks ago, something popped up on my monitor as if it was from Google, so I clicked on it and downloaded it. Then I found out that it more or less hijacked my Google browser and I cannot get rid of it. So when I click on Google, this thing called Babylon Search does my search for me. I’d use the control panel to delete it but it is not in the list of programs. So I’m stuck with it.

I also have noticed that when I do go to Google that it seems to take longer than it used to, and many times it cannot find what I’ve clicked on. Then I keep clicking and eventually I do get what I was wanting.  So, as our head geek, can you solve this problem for me?

– Gerald A.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

A: Why sure I can.  But before I do, I just want to drop a couple of comments about your e-mail.  You can access far more than “some” of my past columns on the web.  At ItsGeekToMe.co you will find a complete, searchable archive of every column I’ve ever written.  There is also special content on the site that doesn’t appear in the newspapers, along with the occasional Google ad that I’m not allowed to ask you to click on.

From your e-mail, I see that you are running Google Chrome.  For those not in the know, Chrome is Google’s answer to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Like IE, it is a web browser, the job of which is to help us locate digital content on the countless websites that live on the Internet, then turn that content into the multimedia eye and ear candy that entertains us while we are online.  No browser – not IE, nor Chrome, nor Opera, nor FireFox, nor Safari (nor any of the others out there) — can do all that on its own. It takes 3^rd party add-on software, called plug-ins, or Browser Helper Objects (BHOs) to do much of the work, and browsers are designed to easily incorporate these add-ons.  What you’ve got there is a 3^rd-party search engine designed for Google Chrome.   Because it is installed in the browser, and not Windows, it doesn’t appear in Windows’ list of installed software; and you must perform the uninstallation via the browser.  On your browser window, there is a smaller white search engine bar to the right of the address bar.  It probably shows Babylon as the active search engine.  Click on the little arrow next to the icon and you’ll get a drop-down menu that lists all your installed search engines, plus an entry that says “Manage Search Engines”.  Click that, and you’ll get a list of the installed search engines.  Select Babylon, and click “Remove”.  If Babylon has pulled any of the other stunts it’s known for, like changing your home page to search.babylon.com, you’ll want to reset that.  Also make sure your desired default search engine is selected.

Q: In reference to the printing in the April 21st NWF Daily News: “FBI hack address”   Any thoughts on this?  I clicked on it.  I feel I might have made a mistake.  It’s not like I have much to hide – a just passwords.

– Kathy S.
Destin, Florida

A: It sounds to me like you’re misunderstanding what was reported, Kathy.  That story concerned a computer crime ring that was broken-up by the FBI many months ago.  As part of their investigation, the FBI replaced several of the criminals’ bogus servers with legitimate servers which, since the FBI is not in the Internet business, they now want to take offline.  The problem is that there are still several hundred thousand people who were victims of the crime ring who do not know their computer was compromised.  They have unknowingly been using the FBI server ever since the crime ring was broken up, and when the FBI takes their server down, these people will all lose Internet connectivity.  The only link in that article was to website that allows you to test to see if your machine is affected.  That address is www.dcwg.org. Follow the instructions, and it will tell you whether you have anything to be concerned about.

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Bonus Web-only Content:

One of my laptops has been acting up lately (yes, just because I’m a Geek doesn’t mean I don’t get problems on my computers!).  Earlier this week, I got the following error dialog while fighting with Internet Explorer:

I’ve said before that I believe the good people at Microsoft somehow believe that every single person running their software must be a computer scientist.  Why else would any programmer in his or her right mind display a dialog like this?  Don’t miss the last line in the dialog, “Expect more errors.”  Well duh!  I’m running Windows.  Thanks, Bill!

Until next week – good luck and happy computing!

– Geek