Did I pick up a virus?

[Bruce Koch]

I updated to IE8 about 2 weeks ago, now some web sites don't work. One site is yahoo maps. Site comes in but no map. Another is a forum that doesn't work but works on a different computer. Suggestions? Most sites work. Thanks, Bruce

[Eric DeSilva]

Sounds more like there are restrictive permissions set up in IE8 that aren't allowing the site to execute scripts or code or something... Check your security settings, set up an exception for yahoo maps and see if that works.

[Dustin Lane]

One virus I've heard a bit about recently is the conficker virus which blocks access to some antivirus websites and various other things. Seems a little related to the problem you're having. Simple test is here:
http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html

Otherwise what Eric suggests could be likely as well.

[Bruce Koch]

I tried the conflickr test and I do not have this. I guess I'm dumb as I do not understand how to what Eric said. Could you give me more details?

[Scott Mann]

Download Mozilla Firefox, it is a much better browser than IE. I have been using it for years and I will never go back to IE. Oh yeah, it's free!



http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html

[Mitchell Andrus]

First, use Firefox.

If you aren't going to do that... yes, some sites will show you that IE8 is not 100% compliant with past web construction practices.

Two of my sites needed a patch that tells IE8 to downgrade some of it's procedures to IE7 standards and this is still not a 100% fix.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Can you go to the Symantec site
the Microsoft site
The PC tools site ?

The worrm that recently was running about prevented you from accessing sites that had the solution.

[Scott Shepherd]

A computer tech I know was mentioning this the other day. I believe he said one of the MS updates actually caused problems with some websites. He didn't go into detail and he wasn't talking to me at the time, but he said he undid the latest update and it now worked.

[Bruce Koch]

I tried to download firefox browser and I get a message that my security settings do not allow the file to be downloaded. I have McAfee and webroot on my computer. I can shut down webroot and still get an error message. How do I shut down McAfee? Or what elseshould I try?

[Greg Peterson]

There is an icon near the top of the browser next to the Refresh button. Put your mouse pointer over it and it will say something about 'display page in compatibility mode' or something to that effect. The icon looks like a torn page.

Hope this helps.

[Scott Shepherd]

If that doesn't work, then you may have a virus. Some of the rotten things out there will shut your ability to get to tools to fix it down, and I suspect firefox is one of those things they don't want you to get to because it's probably exploiting a weakness in internet explorer.

If Greg's suggestion doesn't work, I'd start doing some digging, you may very well have a virus.

[Bruce Koch]

I downloaded Firefox on a different computer and installed it on IE8 computer.Wow, What a difference that made, everything works now. Guess what I think of IE8? Thanks everyone for the help. Bruce

[Scott Shepherd]

Great Bruce, now spend some time looking through the cool add-on's. Cool Iris is a really slick one. If you do a google search for something, then click on the images section of google,and click on the cooliris icon, it puts them all on a board for you that you can scroll through really really quickly.

Also, Fireshot is pretty good also.

Tons of stuff out there. Give some a try!

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I had to uninstall the whole browser because the Ad blocker software add ons would no let me access an electronic database for which I pay dearly.

[Bruce Koch]

I've downloaded Firefox and I have a couple of issues. I get a message some times that javascript needs to loaded and firefox says its enabled. Also adobe flash won't install. Help? Thanks, Bruce

[Jamie Delker]

I received a warning from the company that handles my network for me:

"Recently Microsoft has made available for download/release, its most recent release of Internet Explorer, v8.0. ******** has been rigorously testing this release with many of the common high use applications in our customer base and have found numerous issues causing failures and process errors. At this time, ******** does not recommend installation and does not support IE8 in our client base."

I installed it on my personal laptop, and after 5 minutes of struggling with it I went back to IE 7 just to get 8 off of there. I mostly use Chrome these days.

[Curt Harms]

I not only haven't been using I.E. of any description, I haven't booted Windows in 10 days or two weeks. Yes I use some apps that don't have a good Linux substitute but Ubuntu 9.04 is pretty dang good. I haven't tried installing a scanner yet, but printers are a piece of cake, as is wireless networking. Some manufacturer installs seem to require opening a terminal but what to type is usually pretty clear. Avast is offering an antivirus for Linux so there must be something out there, but I suspect the list of malware is a little shorter than Windows. Of course so is the list of users. If you have a fast internet connection, you can download an image, create a bootable CD and try without any change to your existing setup. It's just that nothing will "be remembered" in a live session.