Please help, tried everything.

[Pentheon]

I'm not sure where this should have been posted but I could really use some help.about 3 days ago I had a pop up from my ISP comcast that said I could download norton anti virus since my mcafee was expired. I did this and had no problems with it so far. Now since yesterday I can't go on certain websites, Nike.com is one of them, it just shows a black page and thats on internet explorer. I also cannot even get firefox to open at all, and the same thing with AIM. Another problem I've noticed is the windows side bar where you can add the gadgets like weather, etc doesn't work, the weather gadget shows a white box instead and above my gmail widget it has a little loading icon and says secure.Is there anyway I can fix any of this? Could norton have done something to the firewall or something I wouldn't know about? I'm running windows vista.

Everytime I run combo fix it seems to fix my IE problem, I'm able to view websites fine with flash and all. I ran that yesterday, then wake up this morning and the shortcuts were gone from the desktop and didn't see it in the uninstall options but there was still a folder for it in C:. Still cannot get firefox or AIM to open and having problems with windows sidebar after running combo fix and the top gadget bar I had disapears.

I feel like Ive tried everything.

I'm not even sure if its a virus or malware

Thanks in advance

[Veltas]

Sounds like your system's sinking...

I'd advise against trying to bail with buckets, I suggest you calm down and call the sea-rescue.

1.  DON'T PANIC - you could make a very silly decision like this.
2.  It sounds like there's a chance you have virus/malware infection,  so stop using your PC (turn it off), and find another source of internet to get help from the experts.

From now on, make sure you only listen to the 'Malware Removal Specialist' people (it's a title shown on the left of their posts).

Read this as it will tell you about what you need to do in the case of malware and virus'.

I know it's not definate, but you don't want to take chances, y'know?

P.S. I'm aware I'm not a Malware Removal Specialist, but it doesn't hurt trying to protect people from malware before one does arrive, and I haven't asked them to do anything other than 'turn it off' which is generally sound advice until an expert arrives.

[Allan]

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,46313.0.html

[Pentheon]

Well I was running a full system scan with avast before you guys posted. It took 2 and a half hours to complete and it found 1 thread with a high severity. The thread is Win32:Malware-gen

Could this be whats causing all of my problems and will avast delete this? I didn't move on to try yet.

[Pentheon]

Requesting to have this thread closed please.