All search and download links fail!

[Fathom]

Hi. I hope someone can help.

I had some low bit rate outgoing internet traffic I was suspicious of. Something was going on in the background all the time. I checked all programs I could turning off updates etc.. I am on XP with a 48K dialup connection and monitor via the popup panel from the little traffic lights. I have Ashampoo Spyware and AntiVirus active.

I downloaded Hijack This and ran the results through an online parse site which highlighted some files as suitable for removal so I did. The traffic is still there but now I can download any programs from Major Geeks or the same ones on a Google search give an internet fail all the time.

My hotmail still works as do my favourite sites but no search links open, so I can't download any malware finders.

How to go forward?