Microsoft.Windows.RedirectedHosts:

[Is this Justin]

I am trying to un-malware my friends computer, and right now this is the final entry that SpyBot repeatedly finds and cannot seem to delete. Can somebody tell me if this is an entry I should remove, or is it akin to the Windows Firewall/Antivirus override entry?


Microsoft.Windows.RedirectedHosts: Redirected host (Redirected host, nothing done)
websearch.com=216.130.185.143



We started oiut with 72 problems, and now we're down to this. Thanks.

[md usa spybot fan]

The site websearch.com currently has an IP Address of 146.82.109.220. That entry is redirecting websearch.com to an IP Address of 216.130.185.143 which is currently unavailable.

The site websearch.com itself is evidently considered a malicious site because access to that site is blocked by hpHosts, Mvps Hosts and Spybot's HOSTS file by placing an entry the HOSTS file of:
127.0.0.1 websearch.com
I don’t know what the intended purpose of that entry in the HOSTS file is, but if it was not placed there intentionally I would consider it a suspicious entry.

The most likely cause of the inability of Spybot to fix that entry is that because some other anti-malware product is blocking Spybot from updating the HOSTS file. What other anti-malware, firewall, internet security products are running in the system?

[Is this Justin]

As far as I can tell, there are no other protection programs running on this computer. I went to a great deal of trouble to uninstall and remove the myriad old programs on her computer, including a very old copy of Norton anti-virus and an old version of AdAware SE. Right now, windows firewall and antivirus are off as well.

[mogramjo]

:bigthumb:Spybot S&D flags problems with many sites that if you DO let Spybot remove them from your particular, perhaps custom hosts file...then you *will*be vulnerable...so, having a desire to not be bothered by nearly all the entries in my 'Hosts' file in Windows...I turn off SSD's desire to disable those blocks by either doing that in SSD/Tools/and uncheck 'hostfile' which then continues to direct those sites to 127.0.0.1 (It bounces the request to nowhere) rather than out/back from the Net. It's a misleading 'false negative' if you leave your hostfile checker enabled. I often just 'rename' Hosts in windows to Hosts.txt to keep SSD from seeing it while I scan...then 'rename' it back to 'Hosts'. For what all that's worth to anyone.:) Bon Chance! You can view it as a '.txt' file to edit those sites you want to make available by putting #<sign> in front of the 127.0.0.1 on the list...then 'Save' of course and rename back to 'Hosts'. If you've a large Hosts file, to find sites in, use the Ctrl + F (find) and type in like 'forums.spybot.info', for example

[mcm624]

i tried everything - read all this and all it took was this link - this will fix all your redirecting probs


http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

[tashi]

Hello,


i tried everything - read all this and all it took was this link - this will fix all your redirecting probs


Bare in mind that if the redirecting problem is caused by a malware infection that will not be "fixed" by the addition of a HOSTS file. :)

[mcm624]

yea, well i scanned my pc with every program you could imagine - some identified the problem some did not - either way none of the malware programs were able to remove the supposed malware prob - when i followed that link and downloaded that host file - not only is the problem fixed - but now none of the scanners even show that there is any malware on my pc - its been working great for the last 4 weeks - so again i say that link i posted above will solve your redirecting problems