Broadband service blocked by Freeserve proxy

My old Dad has subscribed to Telewest's Blueyonder service because he
just likes surfing the Web. He's not very computer savvy though and
he's getting a recurring problem which blocks his Internet access.

Every now and again, for no apparent reason, the LAN setting in the
Connections dialogue of Internet Explorer will set itself to use a
proxy and that proxy will be a Freeserve one.

I've shown him how to go in there and switch it back off and take out
the Freeserve proxy information but at some time in the near future it
will be back again and he has trouble remembering how to deal with it.

I've looked for Freeserve related items to uninstall on his computer
but can't find any.

Please can anyone tell me how I can prevent this from happening in
future?

LilaDuncan wrote:
> My old Dad has subscribed to Telewest's Blueyonder service because he
> just likes surfing the Web. He's not very computer savvy though and
> he's getting a recurring problem which blocks his Internet access.
>
> Every now and again, for no apparent reason, the LAN setting in the
> Connections dialogue of Internet Explorer will set itself to use a
> proxy and that proxy will be a Freeserve one.
>
> I've shown him how to go in there and switch it back off and take out
> the Freeserve proxy information but at some time in the near future it
> will be back again and he has trouble remembering how to deal with it.
>
> I've looked for Freeserve related items to uninstall on his computer
> but can't find any.
>
> Please can anyone tell me how I can prevent this from happening in
> future?
>

I'd suggest searching the registry using regedit and looking for
instances of Freeserve. Any that mention proxies, or in particular the
proxy hostname you are getting should be deleted out of the registry,
but be aware that careless use of regedit can result in a broken machine
so be careful.

It is possible the machine also has some sort of virus/spyware on it so
it needs scanning and cleaning up, personally I use Ad-Aware and Spybot
Search & Destroy and they deal with most of the nasties.

HTH

--

Brian Morrison

please observe reply-to address

LilaDuncan wrote:
> Every now and again, for no apparent reason, the LAN setting in the
> Connections dialogue of Internet Explorer will set itself to use a
> proxy and that proxy will be a Freeserve one.
>
> Please can anyone tell me how I can prevent this from happening in
> future?
>

Install Firefox?

If you must use IE, perhaps you can download the Internet Explorer
administration kit and roll your own IE distribution for him, complete
with the latest updates, custom security settings, etc. This is what
Freeserve have done in the past, producing their own customised browser
(if it's a customised version, you can tell from Help->About (The
version will end with 'CO' and it will say "This is a customised version
of Internet explorer" just above the NCSA mosaic credits)

In uk.telecom.broadband, LilaDuncan wrote:

>at some time in the near future it will be back again

Are you sure he isn't doing a System Restore?

I had a client who thought that this was a data back up, and did a
restore point every day, then a restore the next morning!


--
Nigel M

"Time may be a great healer,
but he's a lousy beautician"

On 10 Jun 2005 15:23, Jim Howes wrote:

>Install Firefox?

I nearly responded with that, but felt it might be considered too flippant!

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:23:22 +0100, Jim Howes
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>LilaDuncan wrote:
>> Every now and again, for no apparent reason, the LAN setting in the
>> Connections dialogue of Internet Explorer will set itself to use a
>> proxy and that proxy will be a Freeserve one.
>>
>> Please can anyone tell me how I can prevent this from happening in
>> future?
>>
>
>Install Firefox?
>
>If you must use IE, perhaps you can download the Internet Explorer
>administration kit and roll your own IE distribution for him, complete
>with the latest updates, custom security settings, etc. This is what
>Freeserve have done in the past, producing their own customised browser
>(if it's a customised version, you can tell from Help->About (The
>version will end with 'CO' and it will say "This is a customised version
>of Internet explorer" just above the NCSA mosaic credits)

installing firefox is a good idea but it does not rectify the problem
with IE, if it is customized
Download and run unbrand.vbs It will do all of the hard work for you.

http://www.dougknox.com/utility/scri...sc/unbrand.htm

Brian Morrison wrote:
> LilaDuncan wrote:
> > My old Dad has subscribed to Telewest's Blueyonder service because he
> > just likes surfing the Web. He's not very computer savvy though and
> > he's getting a recurring problem which blocks his Internet access.
> >
> > Every now and again, for no apparent reason, the LAN setting in the
> > Connections dialogue of Internet Explorer will set itself to use a
> > proxy and that proxy will be a Freeserve one.
> >
> > I've shown him how to go in there and switch it back off and take out
> > the Freeserve proxy information but at some time in the near future it
> > will be back again and he has trouble remembering how to deal with it.
> >
> > I've looked for Freeserve related items to uninstall on his computer
> > but can't find any.
> >
> > Please can anyone tell me how I can prevent this from happening in
> > future?
> >
>
> I'd suggest searching the registry using regedit and looking for
> instances of Freeserve. Any that mention proxies, or in particular the
> proxy hostname you are getting should be deleted out of the registry,
> but be aware that careless use of regedit can result in a broken machine
> so be careful.

Thanks for the advice.
I did a registry search, as you suggested. There was no Freeserve key
but I'll do a deeper search when I go back there later tonight. There
was no Wanadoo key either (he has a little 'W' icon in the corner of
his browser window).

> It is possible the machine also has some sort of virus/spyware on it so
> it needs scanning and cleaning up, personally I use Ad-Aware and Spybot
> Search & Destroy and they deal with most of the nasties.

I've run Spybot and Ad-Aware and they seem to show that the system is
clean.


Regards,
Lila Duncan

Jim Howes wrote:
> LilaDuncan wrote:
> > Every now and again, for no apparent reason, the LAN setting in the
> > Connections dialogue of Internet Explorer will set itself to use a
> > proxy and that proxy will be a Freeserve one.
> >
> > Please can anyone tell me how I can prevent this from happening in
> > future?
> >
>
> Install Firefox?

Thanks I hadn't thought of that. It might be a solution. Is Firefox
immune to changes in the Windows Internet Connection settings?

> If you must use IE, perhaps you can download the Internet Explorer
> administration kit and roll your own IE distribution for him, complete
> with the latest updates, custom security settings, etc.

I'd like to think I could cope with something as complex as that. If I
can't, would simply uninstalling Internet explorer and re-installimg it
again be sufficiently effective?

> This is what
> Freeserve have done in the past, producing their own customised browser
> (if it's a customised version, you can tell from Help->About (The
> version will end with 'CO' and it will say "This is a customised version
> of Internet explorer" just above the NCSA mosaic credits)

That's interesting and probably what I'll find. This could well be the
reason for the recurring problem. Thanks.

Regards,
Lila Duncan

Nigel Molesworth wrote:
> In uk.telecom.broadband, LilaDuncan wrote:
>
> >at some time in the near future it will be back again
>
> Are you sure he isn't doing a System Restore?
>
> I had a client who thought that this was a data back up, and did a
> restore point every day, then a restore the next morning!

I thought he might be doing something. Nothing quite as extreme as a
system restore though. Then again, who knows what he gets up to. :-)


Regards,
Lila Duncan

Tommy wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:23:22 +0100, Jim Howes
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> >LilaDuncan wrote:
> >> Every now and again, for no apparent reason, the LAN setting in the
> >> Connections dialogue of Internet Explorer will set itself to use a
> >> proxy and that proxy will be a Freeserve one.
> >>
> >> Please can anyone tell me how I can prevent this from happening in
> >> future?
> >>
> >
> >Install Firefox?
> >
> >If you must use IE, perhaps you can download the Internet Explorer
> >administration kit and roll your own IE distribution for him, complete
> >with the latest updates, custom security settings, etc. This is what
> >Freeserve have done in the past, producing their own customised browser
> >(if it's a customised version, you can tell from Help->About (The
> >version will end with 'CO' and it will say "This is a customised version
> >of Internet explorer" just above the NCSA mosaic credits)
>
> installing firefox is a good idea but it does not rectify the problem
> with IE, if it is customized
> Download and run unbrand.vbs It will do all of the hard work for you.
>
> http://www.dougknox.com/utility/scri...sc/unbrand.htm

Thanks, I asked my Dad to download and run this. I also had a look at
the code in Notepad. I can see that it removes the branding, I'm not
sure if it goes far enough to remove other configuration effects
though.

Regards,
Lila Duncan