Browser redirect bug

 
 I'm not sure where or how I picked this little bug up, maybe attached to an email I opened. not sure. In windows explorer if I type in a web address I can go to the site I type, however, if I use the built in Google search I get redirected to some honky useless site.
 
  I have malwarebytes installed and it detects it and quarantines it. I have deleted it from the quarantine area but it still comes back. I have tried scanning for it in safe mode and that doesn't seem to help. This isn't the same LAME TROJAN that I recently completely removed with MB, this is something else.
 
 I emptied my browser cache and cookie files. The virus doesn't seem to be taking my computer down or interrupting anything but my Google searches. When it attacks, my browser will hang up and then I'll see another address in my browser window and I'll be resent somewhere else.If I type directly into the search window I can get to my destination. Any Ideas on what this thing is or how to emiminate it? Thanks.

You can also use "Start Page" and forget Google since google keeps track of what you are looking up. All startpage does is not give your identiy out when searching for something to look up and it is easy to download and install. https://startpage.com/ https://startpage.com/eng...-startpage-plugin.html

It is called malware.  Hikackthis will fix it. You DL hijackthis, run it, save a logfile and copy paste any and all su****ious .exe files into the searchbox on the website  http://www.processlibrary.com/ to be sure it isn't something you want or need. Then select it in the regular hijackthis window and HJT will completely remove it. It will likely jump out at you when you see it in the logfile.. save the LF to your desktop. If isn't an .exe file you can still copy/paste anything into a Google search and quickly see what it is... but it is most likely an .exe file.

I've done it many times, it isn't as hard as it looks.

J

Active Disk Image, Acronis or any of those type of things will cover you.

I have been meaning to do this Jon. Do you know if Active DI can be used on several computers? I see that Acronis is cloud based and 49 bucks only covers one computer,  they have a higher price for three computers but if Active is cheaper I'll buy another external drive for this. I am not sure how I feel about the cloud yet... not that I really have a choice in the matter overall.


Which one do you use? You are right... 10 minutes beats the heck out of 10 hours.


Thanks,


Julien

 Thank you for the advice. I have been running and backing up to Acronis. Even though Acronis is a good program I am leery of trusting it totally. Gotta take the leap sometime I guess, reminds me of those replacement spare tires they give you with some cars, you really hate to ever be in the position to need one, or the backup chute in case the main chute fails. I recently loaded some software since my last backup so hopefully I can  try to find another solution. FWIW I have no problems with Sonar X1 running ok.

 I had thought of possibly deleting explorer completely or using another browser. Jbow I'll check out those links, I am up for going into the registry or deeper into the files if necessary.

 Though Malwarebytes gets a high rating Kaspersky ranked higher recently.To their credit Malwarebytes is finding and quarantining it but the virus seems to be self replicating and self recycling.

jbow

Active Disk Image, Acronis or any of those type of things will cover you.

I have been meaning to do this Jon. Do you know if Active DI can be used on several computers? I see that Acronis is cloud based and 49 bucks only covers one computer,  they have a higher price for three computers but if Active is cheaper I'll buy another external drive for this. I am not sure how I feel about the cloud yet... not that I really have a choice in the matter overall.


Which one do you use? You are right... 10 minutes beats the heck out of 10 hours.


Thanks,


Julien

I've been using Active Disk Image for many years, mainly because it is so simple and contains most of the tools you need on the one default disk, you only need to install it to create your registered boot CD then you can remove it from your system.  You can then image any computer you boot with the CD/DVD.
 
The thing with using optical media rather than a thumb drive etc, is that nothing can write to it so it is always going to be clean.  Write the images to a removable drive that isn't connected when the computer is being used normally so the images stay clean too.
 
My days of hunting down the effects of a malware infestation are long gone.  Life's too short.  My W7 and XP partitions take 8 minutes a week to make and around 8 minutes to restore either one.
 
Make an image of when you've just installed your OS, one when you've got all your stuff setup and authorized then just make on going ones so you've always got a good reference to return to.  I just keep the fresh installs and up to two months back which works out at around 160 Gigs for my setup.  The 'Starter' version works fine for me for this purpose but if you wanted to transfer a raw image to another partition for instance you need the 'Standard' version or above.
 
I do use the images as well, often when I've gone "a tweak too far" or I don't like the look of something that's just recently happened...

I had something similar to this a while back, Malwarebytes and MS Essential Security didn't seem to do a thorough job of removing it so I then opened Spybot Search & Destroy > Updated it first and then ran a scan, it found it and others (that the above other programs didn't find) and now my Internet PC is clean as a whistle. 

Initially; what this hijacking redistributor also did was to redirect search listing results to list sites that provided software downloads  > a way to remove it?... but those downloads were all trojans.