I am not sure where I should post this, but I was wondering if anyone can help me with an internet problem. I was surfing the internet when all of a sudden, tons of pop-ups appeared on my screen

I was able to get rid of them and exit internet explorer, but when I tried to return to my usual homepage, an advertisement came up. I thought that my homepage setting had simply been changed, but I was wrong. The advertisement had somehow changed its address to
www.yahoo.com,
www.google.com, and
www.msn.com. Now, I can no longer go to these sites because they automatically become the advertisement warning about downloading a program to improve internet privacy

I have done nothing out of the ordinary and do not understand where all of this came from. I am just very frusterated as to how and why this stupid ad was able to rewrite its address to emulate these sites

I cannot thank you enough for any help or advice that you may have concerning this problem. I just hope that the ad does not spread to any other sites!