The "P" word... and not sure what to think.

[Delanie]

Last week our computer crashed. We have reinstalled everything, including the internet browsers that didn’t come with the computer, etc. Not everything is quite in place yet.

Now, the past two days when using the internet and typing in an address, it has listed a bunch of pornography sites in the dropdown menu. I’m of course shocked and horrified. DH has been out of town for the week.

When I pull up the history, these sites are listed all together at the bottom of the history page, before our home page and all the usual sites.

I don’t know what to make of it. Part of me is thinking my husband has been viewing these sites… and part of me is wondering if the aftermath of the computer crash had let something sneak through. Which I admit seems naïve to think.

I don’t want to call my husband about this, I would rather discuss it when he gets home.

[Wingnut]

If it's only been the last two days, but your husband has been out of town for a week, it sounds like it could be someone else in your house. Either that or remnants of the virus, like you suggested.

[Vort]

It seems highly unlikely to me that your husband has been viewing porn sites and saving them to your history and such, especially if he hasn't even been home. Do porn sites also show up in your shortcuts?

[jerome1232]

Now, the past two days when using the internet and typing in an address, it has listed a bunch of pornography sites in the dropdown menu. I’m of course shocked and horrified. DH has been out of town for the week.

This is the key part, what, if anything, did you change right before this started happening. Did you install something. Did you visit sites which utilize Java or Flash. Are your java and/or flash plugins updated. Which browser are you using? How many people have access to this computer and do you all use the same account?

Check your browsing history, are these sites actually in the history? Take note of the dates they were accessed. Does this happen with multiple search engines or is it in a particular search engine? Are you using your browsers search bar or do you actually go to the search engines webiste and do your searches.

[Delanie]

The computer crashed and was back up and running before he left, and I haven't done anything on the internet since then. DH reinstalled everything that wasn't part of the factory settings of whatever you would call it.

Which is what has me worried. The only other person in our house is a toddler. DH and I use the same account.

My husband handled most of the computer work, so I don't know what has been installed program-wise. I'm not sure what's updated.

The sites are actually in the history--but they seem out of place with all other past websites. The dates placed them all together.

This hasn't happend with a search engine. It's the predictive text action on the address bar. So we're just using the browser, no specifc search site.

We have Internet Explorer and Firefox. I only saw this on Firefox. That's the browser we usually use.

The websites have not shown up in the shortcuts.

[x1134x]

The sites are actually in the history--but they seem out of place with all other past websites. The dates placed them all together.

This sounds like virus behavior. Are there timestamps? If your husband was browsing porn, there'd be time between the site hits, if they're very close together in time, its more than likely a virus.

While re-installing there may have been a time when your antivirus software was not installed or up to date.

Perform a full hard drive scan on your machine with your antivirus software.

Do a think back to the date and time that they were brought up, (was he even on the pc at that time/date?) and do a logic check on the timesstamps, if they were all at the same time or one right after the other, or with equal times between them, that's indiciative of computer, not human browsing. Keep in mind if you're visiting ONE website, most of the time, you're actually visiting many, because the advertisements etc are pulled from other websites. If he needed to ahem, torrent, a program that he needed to reinstall from a site like, ahem, the piratebay. . . the advertisements on sites like that can be pointed at pornographic content. Also pronographic websites "park" domains, such that if you're trying to type in Disney | Official Home Page for All Things Disney and accidentally type dinsey.com, you can be whisked away to pornographic sites via forwarding code, and land somewhere like "pornographic.com".

Did he do a full-reinstall of the OS? If your system crashed via virus, and he simply uninstalled/reinstalled the programs that were broken the virus stuff would still be in there.

All that being said, just talk to your husband about it. You know him enough to know when he's acting "caught" vs "what the heck are you talking about?" Don't you? You can wrap yourself around the axle with forensics, or you can just confront the person directly.

Edited September 12, 2012 by x1134x

[Vort]

All that being said, just talk to your husband about it. You know him enough to know when he's acting "caught" vs "what the heck are you talking about?" Don't you?

Possibly. Then again, it might not be so easy to tell a legitimate angry denial and "how could you think such a thing of me?!" from a similar feigned response said by a guilty party.

If you're going to confront your husband, I suggest you simply tell him what you found and ask what he thinks or if he knows how it got there. Unless you have reason to suspect the worst of him, don't.

[EarlJibbs]

So were the dates it says the sites were vistied while he has been gone? I am wasnt able to accertain that from the comments.

If it comes up in the predictive text in the address bar, most likely it has been typed into there prior. I hope I am wrong, however, but I personally doubt it is a virus. Then again, there are those on this forum that know plenty more about computers.

I think you are wise to wait until he gets home to talk to him.

[jerome1232]

You can enable time stamps (on mine they are off by default) When you are in the Show all history window, click view, show columns and enable what you need to.

----

Completly my opinion but this doesn't sound like typical behavior for malicious code, if some mailicious code were able to compromise your browser and put sites that the coder wants you to visit into your history, I *would* think they would've had access to be able to and would have adjusted your home page along with some other settings.

To me it *sounds* like someone forgot to turn on private browsing one time they were using the computer. In case it has to be said private browsing is a feature built into all major browsers which causes them to not track history and trys to clear all cookies when you exit private browsing.

[slamjet]

If it's predictive searches, then yes, every possible. So many times I've hit "enter" and so many times I've looked at the search and wondered "what the heck!?" You can turn the predictive "feature" off by clicking on settings in google.

As for the web pages, the further down they are, the older it is. I would definitely wait until he's home and CALMLY ask him about it. This is nothing you want to do over the phone.

[Delanie]

If you're going to confront your husband, I suggest you simply tell him what you found and ask what he thinks or if he knows how it got there. Unless you have reason to suspect the worst of him, don't.

This is what I think I will do.

I'm still just confused at the whole thing. My first reaction after horror was a computer/internet/virus issue... and then led to all those stories you hear about fine upstanding citizens' secret lives. My husband is kind of wild, but I've never thought of him as the porn type.

My gut instinct is that it's merely a computer thing. But another voice in my head says that's denial.

The time hits are all right together.

[Windseeker]

How do you connect to the internet?

If you use Comcast I would recommend getting the following installed.

It's free.

Constant Guard -

I would also look at OpenDNS Family Shield which is also free. It will block porn sites no matter what browswer you use. It's not software installed locally but something you setup on your wireless router that will send your traffic thru a DNS filter, so you won't get anywhere near those sites. This is also a great solution if your kids. It will block sites from iphones, ipads, ipods, nintendo wii's, kindle fires or nooks or anything that accesses your wireless connection.

OpenDNS - Parental Controls

[Delanie]

So were the dates it says the sites were vistied while he has been gone? I am wasnt able to accertain that from the comments.

If it comes up in the predictive text in the address bar, most likely it has been typed into there prior. I hope I am wrong, however, but I personally doubt it is a virus. Then again, there are those on this forum that know plenty more about computers.

I think you are wise to wait until he gets home to talk to him.

The dates are for times when he was gone.

Also, the addresses were the long & complex ones. Not simple www dot hot baddness dot com.

Feeling better.

[slamjet]

Then it very well could be the product of advertisements. Use Firefox and/or chrome and install Adblock Plus. This will block 90% of the advertisements out there. Also, sign up for and use opendns.org. Its free and can be used as a filter and as a benefit, it may speed up your browsing.

[x1134x]

The time hits are all right together.

How close? Seconds? Minutes? tens of minutes?

if the dates were for times he was gone, then it wasn't him obviously. From what I'm reading I'm thinking your machine is still infected, and the crash wasn't fixed properly. I've fixed hundreds of crashed pcs where suddenly the machine is browsing porn on its own, and these are laptops owned & used exclusively by women who I trust would never start going there on their own.

The best course of action is to back up any and all documents, favorites, and email files you may have on the machine to a USB stick or another pc, then reinstall the operating system from scratch. (of course you'll have to reinstall all the programs as well.) You can then get and use a program called deep-freeze that will allow you to go back to the pristine state regardless of what happenes in the future (accidental deletions, viruses etc). If you're still using XP you can download and install a free version of this type of software from microsoft called "steady state".

read this article: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Retraction: There is In Fact Such a Thing as a Virus that Puts Porn on Your Computer.

Edited September 12, 2012 by x1134x

[jerome1232]

All it takes is visiting a site with flash based adds with a slightly out of date flash plugin. Scan that thing for malware, once upon a time Spybot Search and Destroy was a very good and free scanner, I'm not sure how it ranks up against other scanners these days.

[EarlJibbs]

Someone mentioned torrents. Torrents destroyed my...errrr.... a freind of mines computer. I know that my...errrr.... friend has stayed away from any such sites, but because of his concience, not because of viruses.

[Delanie]

All time dates within seconds.

[annewandering]

Porn finds every opening they can find to get to your computer whether you want them or not. Satan is pretty tricky and on top of the actual porn, he gets us, wives, to doubting our husbands.

I bet he will be as horrified as you were.

[Delanie]

Possibly, anne!

I'm suddenly imagining him finding this before I can mention it and he wondering what I was doing!

[MorningStar]

This is my advice. It could be it's just from the virus, but it could also be that the virus happened in the first place from looking at a porn site. If it were me, I would say nothing and monitor his activity because it's common to lie about it and then they just work harder to hide it. You can really drive yourself crazy wondering if he did or didn't. Porn addicts are awesome at lying and will take those lies very far to cover their behinds.

I really hope that is not the case. :)

[Wingnut]

My husband is kind of wild, but I've never thought of him as the porn type.

I'm curious what you think is "the porn type."

[jerome1232]

I'm curious what you think is "the porn type."

The kinda guy that enjoys the apperance of a female body fits the description well.

Oh wait...

[Wingnut]

The kinda guy that enjoys the apperance of a female body fits the description well.

Oh wait...

I know you're being a bit snarky, but you've hit my point: I don't think porn has a "type."

[Backroads]

I'm assuming porn type as any guy you could see viewing porn behind your back? Like you said, surprises happen every day. Still, there's no point in calling him a porn addict until you actually have proof.

By the sounds of it, I'm prone to think this was a computer problem more than anything. I've seen unfiltered, unprotected computers do pretty much the same thing.

I do suggest bringing up the incident with your husband when he gets home, just to make sure you're both on the same page (and hopefully he doesn't lie).

If you're still worried, quietly put up a filter and see what happens.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Backroads