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All of the fixes above are valid. You may have a virus, but this sounds more like a spyware issue. A BHO, Browser Helper Object may be responsible. There is a free utility called BHO Demon that can be downloaded that may pick it up.
It is possible to clean up the box, but why bother?
For heavens sake get ride of ME. It is a legacy OS based on the 9x platform. Completely insecure. I DO HOPE you are not shopping online and using you credit card information using this computer. If you are, stop now.
If you are running at least a Pentium III 800Mhz, 512mb memory, erase the drive and install XP. Now you CAN do an upgrade install, but it is generally considered a poor idea since you are potentially bringing your problems along with you.
If you are not comfortable doing this yourself, call up Best Buy and have their Geek Squad crew take a look at it.
Regardless of what you do, back up all of your files before you do anything. If you have digital photos, make multiple back ups to insure that they are not lost. You can get an external USB drive enclosure, that is basically a hard drive connected to your computer using a USB cable. Another alternative is to simply burn the data onto DVDs (test the DVDS to make sure they work).
If you REALLY trusted one of your fellow pelicanites, and you have DSL or a cable modem, you could install a remote access program called VNC and we could take a look at the machine and attempt to clean it up.
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