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I am getting random redirects and fear that I have been hijacked. How do I find out if that is indeed the case, and if so, how can I fix it?

  • 3 replies
  • 12 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by Sheryanne

toksic
toksic

Sometimes when I click a link, I get redirected to "scour" which gives me a list of links that may or may not have anything to do with my search. Also, I play an app on Facebook and am experiencing hella lag and have also been redirected from there to random sites.

Sometimes when I click a link, I get redirected to "scour" which gives me a list of links that may or may not have anything to do with my search. Also, I play an app on Facebook and am experiencing hella lag and have also been redirected from there to random sites.

Chosen solution

Do a malware check with some malware scan programs.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of the database before doing a scan.

See also "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked and What to do when searches take you to the wrong search website

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All Replies (3)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Top 25 Contributor
  • Moderator

Chosen Solution

Do a malware check with some malware scan programs.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of the database before doing a scan.

See also "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked and What to do when searches take you to the wrong search website

toksic
toksic Question owner

Thanks cor-el for your response. I did some more research and found a program that fixed me up... http://www.combofix.org/. It done a scan and found 2 problems and removed them, I have been fine ever since.

Sheryanne
Sheryanne

For me Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials did not detect any malware or virus on my computer. Then I tried SuperAntispyware, Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware by Lavasoft. I would NOT recommend them. Most definitely do not install Lavasoft Ad-Aware. I installed these three programs and did a full scan. They all claimed to have found trojans, etc... and then disinfected and removed them. But they all left remnants and pieces all over the place and the malware kept replicating. It was an absolute mess! I uninstalled SuperAntispyware and Spybot but the Lavasoft Ad-Aware would not uninstall!! I first tried Ad/Remove Programs but it did not give me an "uninstall" button. Then I tried to go to the Start Menu where it had an "uninstall Ad-Aware" option in the Program group, but it was a lie, instead it tried to re-install itself. I ran rkill.exe and repeated everything in Safe-Mode... didn't help. I opened the command prompt in Safe-Mode, it would not let me delete the file AdAwareService.exe. I spent an entire day from morning until night going through the registry and windows files deleting every instance of Lavasoft and Ad-Aware. It fought back all the way but I finally killed it. If you look up reviews on these programs, they all get one or two stars out of five(?). I'm very surprised that Cor-el (the first reply) recommends them. Lavasoft Ad-Aware is bad news, don't install it.