Please help!!! I think Sweetsearch.com is taking over my browser now and I cannot get rid of it from Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, even for Mozilla Firefox. I notice that my homepage was changed to this website a few days ago but I still cannot reset it to google anymore. Is it a virus? Why my antivirus program fails to catch it?
Sweetsearch.com belongs to a browser hijacker that can be very notorious as it is designed to change your homepage and redirect your searches to malicious websites. Such malware can attack your browsers including Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox as soon as it is installed. Now it is infecting thousands of new machines everyday and it is very hard to remove. Once running, the homepage of your browser may have been changed without any permission. And the worse is you will not be able to reset it back. Perhaps, a search toolbar may appear at the top of your browser and it won’t allow you to uninstall it.
This is a deceptive website which pretends to be a legitimate search engine and offer functions for net users to search for whatever information they need. Even though it claims to be a search engine for students, you shouldn’t be cheated by this low-quality website as it is used to boost advertising revenue so as to inflate a site’s page ranking in search results. It is suggested users never use this bogus search engine for your default search provider. Once you do that, you will be offered to download more dubious products and file sharing applications which will do more harm than good from the search results. Therefore, it is suggested users to get rid of Sweetsearch.com hijacker manually and completely in order to save the computer.
Maybe lots of PC users will try to scan their computers once they detect Sweetsearch.com redirect on their computers, but after spending several hours scanning the computer, finally they get nothing related to the virus. According to this situation, every computer user should understand a fact that Antivirus tools are not omnipotent. Sometimes they can’t detect or catch viruses timely. That’s because the antivirus is produced by human being, it also takes time to make its function well to handle with a new virus. Furthermore, this type of browser hijacker is tricky, it can block any legitimate security programs already installed on the system which may lead to its removal, hiding itself in the root of the infected system. Therefore, if you want to remove Sweetsearch.com redirect completely, you need to delete all the infected files, processes, as well as registry entries which are related to this nasty virus so that to ensure the security of your computer.
Considering Sweetsearch.com virus can’t be fixed by any security tools, uses can use the manual guide below to fix this issue.
1. Clear all the cookies of your affected browsers.
Since tricky hijacker virus has the ability to use cookies for tracing and tracking the internet activity of users, it is suggested users to delete all the cookies before a complete removal.
Google Chrome:
Click on the “Tools” menu and select “Options”.
Click the “Under the Bonnet” tab, locate the “Privacy” section and click the “Clear browsing data” button.
Select “Delete cookies and other site data” to delete all cookies from the list.
Internet Explorer:
Open Internet explorer window
Click the “Tools” button
Point to “safety” and then click “delete browsing history”
Tick the “cookies” box, then click “delete”
Mozilla Firefox:
Click on Tools, then Options, select Privacy
Click “Remove individual cookies”
In the Cookies panel, click on “Show Cookies”
To remove a single cookie click on the entry in the list and click on the “Remove Cookie button”
To remove all cookies click on the “Remove All Cookies button”
2. End the malicious process from Task Manager.
Once this dangerous redirect is installed, computer user may notice that CPU usage randomly jumps to 100 percent, slowing down the computer. If your system’s CPU spike is constant, users should check from Task Manager and see if there is a suspicious process occupying the system resources and then end it immediately.
(The name of the virus process can be random.)
Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc at the same time and it will open up task manager directly. Then change to “Processes” tab.
3. Show hidden files and folders.
Open Folder Options by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking Appearance and Personalization, and then clicking Folder Options.
Click the View tab.
Under Advanced settings, click Show hidden files and folders, uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) and then click OK.
4. Remove all the malicious files manually.
%AppData%Local[random].exe
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\random
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\run\random
Sweetsearch.com is a bogus search engine that tricks unwary users to keep it as default search engine for browsing further information. It is very disturbing as this hijacker will continuously redirect your web searches to some fake web sites. And it can be installed on Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome without your awareness. Most of time you may get this virus from unsafe freeware, shareware or advertising-supported programs such as various browser add-ons or toolbars. Although it doesn’t show any noticeable damages on your PC, PC users should understand that this threat belongs to browser hijacker and it may refer to the ZeroAccess Rootkit which can be used to steal private information or install rogue security programs. It is strongly recommended to remove Sweetsearch.com redirect quickly as possible to avoid further damage.
Note: If you are not a computer wiz and have no idea how to perform the removal, please contact experts from YooCare Online Tech Support for further help.
Published by & last updated on November 6, 2013 5:03 am
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