Automatic redirection of websites to google.com
Very often, when I search for something in google, the results are displayed and then when I click on the link to a website, instead of displaying the webpage I am redirected instantly to google.com. This also happens when I use other search engines eg Bing. Can anyone help me to fix this problem?
All Replies (7)
Your troubleshooting information doesn't show any Extensions. Is this page really completely empty?
orange Firefox button or classic Tools menu > Add-ons > Extensions category
Does this affect any other browsers on your system, or only Firefox?
Thanks for the quick reply,
I have no extensions installed; at least not on this user account.
This also happens on Internet Explorer as well
Requests could be redirected as a number of levels:
- Security/filtering/parental control software on your PC or equivalent functions in a router/firewall
- Privacy/proxy/anonymizing/VPN software on your PC or equivalent functions in a router/firewall
- DNS server(s) on your PC or in a router/firewall
If you cannot think of any filtering software or privacy/anonymizing software that you are running intentionally, then as a first step, you may want to run some supplemental scans. These two free tools are highly regarded:
Malwarebytes Anti-malware : http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free
SUPERAntiSpyware : http://www.superantispyware.com/
Thanks for the links; I will try them over the weekend.
I can't think of any filtering software and also, on Internet explorer I am redirected to multiple sites eg eBay instead of just google for firefox
I have downloaded the spyware software that you recommended, and I have run scans on my computer with them, but nothing has flagged up. Also when I open browsers, eg Internet Explorer another page is sometimes opened as well as my homepage, which I do not want. Can you think of anything I can do to stop this?
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
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 their databases before doing a scan.
- http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
- http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
- http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner
- http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
- http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
Google redirect virus is challenging to get rid of due to its capability to hide deep inside the operating system as well as its potential to eliminate traces and footprints on how it got inside the computer. As of nowadays, not a single security application in the industry can guarantee 100% protection from this infection. This explains, why your pc got infected even having a safety software installed.
Some computer users know that Google redirect virus is just not a virus, but in fact a rootkit. Rootkit infections unlike other virus, spyware or trojan infections are really difficult to get rid of. In most cases, google redirect virus rootkit is seen related to Trojans which makes it a lot more deadly. In accordance with a 2011 report, Google redirect virus have currently infected 45,00,000 computers worldwide, out of which 1/3rd is from US.
Some symptoms that you are having this virus on your PC:
- Browsers freeze
- Pages not loading at all
- Google/Bing/Yahoo searches redirected to malicious site/s
- Some programs won’t respond
- Internet connection brakes itself
- Terrible adds popping on visited webpage/s
If you have these symptoms on your Computer, I suggest using safe and respected software program as the 1 I've provided below. The Google redirect virus removal tool deals with malware infections that lead to Google redirect virus symptoms and are so difficult to detect and fix.
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