I.E. and AOL

I have a question concerning the removal of I.E. from my computer, but first I need to preface my question with a little info...

I don't know if I've picked up a virus or what, but it seems like everytime I set out to explore the web with IE, there is "something" running in the background. Every now and then, I hear a beep, like my computer is trying to do something. I finally figured out that I can have my Windows Task Manager "on top," so to speak, to see what was going on. Well, when I'd hear the beeping, I'd look at the manager, and it would show that something called the Internet Explorer Dialer was running. Now I have no idea what the heck a dialer was trying to dial, so I'd click on it, then click on end process. That would stop the beeping for a while, but within 10 to 15 minutes, it's start to do it again.

I've tried deleting all my cookies, thinking maybe that was the source of the problem, but that didn't seem to do anything, except make it extremely difficult to log onto my favorite sites because I've wiped out all my saved passwords and such.

I've run all my virus programs and adware programs, and although I found no viruses, I did find a few adware items that I immediately removed.

So, here is my question. Since I connect to the internet via AOL, and can surf the web from AOL, would it be a good idea to just remove IE from my computer altogether? About the only reason I use IE anyway is because if I want to download a picture or a clip art graphic of some sort, it gets saved in either the 'gif' or 'jpeg' fomat, where when I save it through AOL, it gets saved in the 'art' format and it's difficult to get it to display when I want to view it later.

Any hints, info, comments, and whatever else you'd like to share will be, as always, greatly appreciated.

Thanks, and God Bless!!!

Adam

 

Thanks for the information Don, but unfortunately it didn't do the trick (after all, you did say there was no guarantee lol).

I think, however, I may have found the problem. I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed just for luck. I had a chat program called mIrc installed on my computer (i'm a huge chatter), that was a "new" version that I downloaded maybe a week or so ago. Anyway, I hadn't used it for a couple of days (maybe Saturday was the last day). Anyway, trying to make a long story short, I was still having the same problem this morning, so I thought maybe somehow a "rouge" program got installed on my computer, so I went to my control panel to delete it in case there was one there (it's happened before), and when I saw that the mirc program had last been used on 11-11-03, it got me to thinking, especially since I hadn't used it this morning. Well, still trying to make my long story short, I decided to delete the program, just to see what might happen. So far it's been so good. It's been about 40 to 45 minutes, and so far I haven't seen anything 'running' in the background (yes, I have my windows task manager up as I type).

So, I am really hoping that this takes care of it. If I have no problems after a day or two, then I'll know that that program was probably the source of the problem. I'll be keeping those fingers and toes crossed

God Bless!!!

Adam

p.s. I guess from now on I'll be doing my chatting in an AOL chat room. There's always plenty at chatter going on there

 

YIKES!!!

226 of those little buggers were hiding on my 'C' drive. I'm happy to report that they no longer reside there woo-hoo!!

Thanks for the info Diane

God Bless!!!

Adam

p.s. just to let y'all know, as of 12:49pm Chicago time (CST), I've yet to encounter any more problems. Here's to hoping we can put this in the "Case Closed" file You people are the best!!