For some strange reason, Internet explorer pages keep popping up at random, usually with advertisements. I ran a full system scan with avast and deleted a supposedly "ad generating" virus but the problem continues. The task manager also shows a fair amount of iexplore.exe processes running at one time (which come back eventually after ending them)

I don't use internet explorer ever. i may have opened it once if at all in the several months i've had my laptop. I use google chrome which it came with.

it can be that crome isnt marked as standard browser
reinstall it and look what it does

Nope. It was a random program called FREEzeFrog or something that was opening the pages. uninstalled it and havent had the problem since.

Damn surveys...

Freeze frog removal discussion on Yahoo answers.

HTTP://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1034815AAl8Ncc

Freeze-frog is actually, a Spyware/Malicious software which keeps making unwanted/unnecessary tasks in windows.

Unfortunately, i haven't found a solution on this. I will post back when i find a solution.

read the second answer... its as easy as uninstalling it