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.

See if anything from this Windows thread will help.
http://www.sevenforums.com/system-security/244826-google-redirect-virus-need-assistance.html

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

Oh my, this could be a PITA for you these things tend to replicate all over your system and some of those redirects for sure will be adding to your nightmares.
 
The only surefire way of clearing this out is a complete reformat and re-install.  There are no shortcuts to peace of mind IMO and really there is no need to mess about with this kind of thing these days.
 
Then get yourself equipped with some imaging software and make regular images of your OS in future so you can get back to a totally clean and fully working environment within a few minutes of such an occurance.  It's much quicker than trying to find and eliminate these kinds of things only to find it's come back in a couple of weeks and Windows System restore just doesn't cut it.  In fact many of them things thrive among your System Restore files.
 
Active Disk Image, Acronis or any of those type of things will cover you.  Just get one that will Boot from a DVD/CD image so it doesn't even need to be installed on your system and you can re-prep your drives with it without having to use the infected system.
 
It happens.  Be prepared, and you can be fully back up and running within 10 minutes of something like this happening in future.

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

I missed that malwarebytes isn't doing it. You will have to manually remove it from the registry, HJT should do it. If not use one of the forums. They are good people.

http://majorgeeks.com/Trend_Micro_HijackThis_d5554.html 
 
if you need help:  http://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showforum=41 

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35 

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum55.html 

I've used this one several times:  http://www.spywareinfoforum.com/index.php?/forum/18-malware-removal/ 

Don't despair, it isn't hard once you get a little bit of a handle on it.

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

The Acronis Cloud is only if you want to back up to their "cloud" server.  Otherwise you can you can backup to any local media, such as a hard drive.  I have Acronis and only backup to a separate hard drive.  I make full hard drive backups, I don't do the incremental types.  My DAW systems has three drives, an SSD for the OS and Sonar, a hard drive for everything else and another hard drive only for Acronis backups.

 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.

One of the problems wih a virus is that it can attach itself to all media, such as a USB flash drive or CD and then when you clean it out and then reconnect the flash drive or load the CD, for exampe, the virus/malware will reinstall itself.   Same way, if you clean it out and then use system restore to go back to an old point, it can reappear (thus the reason system restore should be disabled before cleaning out the crap and then re-enabling it after its cleaned out).