Scratching my head ??????

[DonnaT]

I just noticed, on one of my menu bars there's a link I didn't put there.

It's labeled: "1240 Manually selected Transgendered Resources". Clicking on it takes me to http://www.cbel.com/transgendered/

There are a lot of trans cites linked there.

I guess IE somehow noticed how many trans sites I've visited and made the menu button. Right beside it is one labeled "Ancestor Chronicles-Our Kin And Their Times". Haven't clicked on it yet.

[DonnaT]

Just clicked on it. It took me to a forum which was discussing the surname "Starrett". One of my ancestors from PA was a Starrett.

[Carol Ann]

Donna T my dear nothing like spyware

[DonnaT]

If its spyware it must be a part of IE. I have both Mcafee and AOL spyware protection.

[Kyra]

Hi Donna,
Quite possibly it is an IE feature. How often do you clear your history? I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to add a "helpful" feature such as this. Question is...how to turn it off when you don't want it to function.

What ver. of IE are you running? What OS?

[DonnaT]

Hi Kyra.

Windows XP, IE 7, and I clear my history everytime I use the computer.

I can easily remove the particular tool bar/menu that these buttons are on, but don't mind them being there, so haven't. I just thought it kind of strange that these buttons popped up.

[Kyra]

IE 7 is the latest version, and I was warned not to use it. An IT friend told me to stick with ver 6. He said 7 had "loop-holes" in it. He didn't elaborate any further, and I never installed it on my machine. You probably never noticed it before because IE 7 has only been out a short time.

Sorry I don't have any more useful info than that. I will ask next time I talk to my friend.

Hugs,
Kyra

[Connie]

Donna,

I'm running a similar setup, XP with IE7. I've not seen any additions to a toolbar on my system, could the buttons be on a Google toolbar or Yahoo one or other type? I don't have any of them. Maybe a feature of the toolbar?

Connie

[DonnaT]

It's gone now.

Either my wife or son removed it. I wish they'ed leave my PC alone, they have their own to play with.

Or it disappeared in the same manner it appeared in the first place.

But, yes, it was on a separate tool bar form the IE tool bar.

[Lydia]

On AOL, if you go to "settings" and "Internet [Web] Options" you get a window that has a tab: "Clear My Footprints". Go to that option and there you can clear your history, cookies, etc.

In IE, click on "Tools", then "Internet Options". You can remove the accumulated temporary files.

Good idea to do this occasionally. Good housekeeping.

Lydia

[Gaven McLaren]

I also suggest getting a anti-spyware program such as Ad Aware or Microsoft defender or both. I have and use both. Microsoft defender will do real time blocking and Ad Aware does a better job at searching.

Ad aware
http://dw.com.com/redir?pid=10399602&me ... 99602.html

Microsoft defender
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

[Carol Ann]

Hi Donna T,
I was wondering if you use Mozilla Firefox?. It has it's own tracking cookies within itself and they keep track of where you go. They show up on my spyware but can not be deleted because when you log in they come right back.

[DonnaT]

I do have Mozilla on the PC, put there by my son, but don't use hardly ever. However, I did download the latest version and opened it to see if another forum's pages would download faster. They didn't.

Could have been it.

[Carol Ann]

DonnaT:,
I run SpyBot as my anti spyware and Firefox shows up every time I run it.
It doesn't do any harm, but it's a build in thing. As fast as I delete them they are back if I run Firefox as a brouser.

[Gaven McLaren]

Most computer techs swear by Firefox because it is less apt to get spyware.