Well, actually the subject should be Hi, Jack, but I don’t want a visit from the authorities.
My other computer, the Dell laptop, appears to have acquired a bug in its Google in the last couple of days. If I try to get to a website through Google, it invariably gets redirected somewhere else. For example, clicking on Garden Railways in Google gets me to one or another “landscaping” sites, which appear legit but I suspect are not.
My bookmarks appear to be unaffected; they get me where I want to go. So far.
Not sure if this is related, but since this started I’m also having trouble logging on as myself in XP Home; somethimes it works, sometimes not. Sometimes Windows itself won’t start until I reboot once or twice. I ran the built-in diagnostic tests, which say the hardware is all OK.
And the AVG antivirus is doing funny things: a couple of minutes after I start a scan, a Microsoft dialogue box (possibly a fraud?) shows up saving that AVG is having trouble and should be shut down, and the AVG screen tells me that all its components are inactive … but if I ignore this, AVG keeps running and the components all get the green light again. So far, AVG has not detected anything.
Can someone with slightly more computer knowledge than a comatose slug (my level) suggest what I can do about this? Preferably in a kindly fashion, in words easily understood by such a one as myself.