If you are experiencing one of the things listed below,
- Home page or other settings have been changed on your computer without your knowledge
- Certain sites that worked before are no longer accessible, such as anti-spyware and other well-known security software sites
- Ads are popping up on your screen endlessly and hopelessly
- New toolbars or favorites are installed and added that give you icons or links to web pages that are extremely phishing
- Finally, your computer started running like a crawling snail
then, congratulation, your browser has been hijacked by the malicious software that managed to find their way in.
Now what do I do? No need to feel panic, here are 6 tips that can help fix your hijacked browser.
1. Install a good, working anti-virus and anti-spyware program, such as Microsoft Security Essentials, a free software that helps protect your computer from malicious software, such as virus, or spyware.
2. Run Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool to check computers for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software, and helps remove any infections found.
3. Stop all popping up ads browser windows by killing the browser from the task manager, and turn on Popup-blocker if you haven’t done so.
4. Reset browser settings to default. For Internet Explorer, you can do so from Advanced tab in Internet Options
5. Open browser without turning on any add-ons. For Internet Explorer, you can do so by simply launching a no-addon version of IE.
6. Ask for help if none of the above tips helped.
Or, in worst scenario, back up your data and reinstall your Windows from the scratch but I hope you would never go that far.
