thanks for all the input on my question. I have found a couple of sites that seem to have solved the problem. Both sites provide FREE software to remove these irritating programs.
The first is :
http://malwarebytes.org
Download, install and let it run. I actually had to download this software to a flash drive from a clean computer because the hijacker would not let me get there or if I managed to fool it and get to the site, it would not download. This one should do the job but just in case I also used:
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner.
This site offers both a free online scanner as well as a free download and free 30 day trial of their fully licensed security system.
After downloading, installing and running both these programs, the hijacker seems to be gone. Good luck, hope this works.