Pop up problem

[ChrisnChris]

Ok, to start with I'm NOT very pooter savvy!
I have started to get problems with pop ups.
From what I can tell pop ups should be being blocked.

I browse through google, when I click on a link, 50% of the time it is re-directed to an advert or one of those shopping search sites, it won't let me go back to the original search page so I have to close the whole page & go back to firefox home & start again.

The pop ups always appear in the background.
I get a message saying Internet explorer has stopped working....etc etc....but am still able to access the internet.

Sometimes the pc stops working altogether & have to switch off via the on/off button, held in for 5secs.

Any ideas, also what is the best anti virus spyware etc etc...must be free though!!
Cheers

[VEA]

Have you installed anything new recently? something along the lines of the google toolbar?

Best Free Antivirus is Avast (IMHO)
try Malware bytes and Spyware Doctor, both can be downloaded for free.

[JohnnyPanic]

Clean up
Start off by downloading, installing & running CCleaner to remove the crap from your computer.

Disinfect
Then, download & run Malwarebytes
Then run it again.

Protect
Finally remove any AntiVirus program you have running, install Microsoft Security Essentials and run a full scan (and leave on real-time scanning).
It's great, it's free, it's unobtrusive and it doesn't hog much in the way of system resources. It is so far the best AntiVirus program I've used over the last decade+, free or otherwise.

[ChrisnChris]

Thanks, I have downloaded Avast & that seems to have worked although I did just get redirected when looking at another PH post...strange.