Hi there. So, I found out yesterday that my homepage has been taken over by something called SearchShock.com and I’ve been spending my morning searching all around to get answers of how to get rid of it. I am using Internet Explorer and Windows 7. This stuff keeps giving me pop-up ads asking me to buy its product. I have run security checks on my computer to check for viruses, but nothing is found. I checked my pop up settings and everything is set to be blocked, yet I still see all of these annoying ads. How do I change my homepage back to Google and remove all the annoying pop-up ads completely?
Is SearchShock.com taking over your homepage without your permission? Please be attention, if you encounter this issue now, then your computer may be already hijacked by some infections. We usually call this type of infection as browser hijacker or adware. Once it gets installed, it changes your homepage and default search engine to its page without getting your approval, no matter you are using Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. It is designed by cyber criminals in order to advertise commercial websites and increase their traffic. Even though this page seems harmless, if you enter a keyword to search information you want, you will find out this spam search engine only helps to advertise sponsored websites and display annoying. It does nothing to beneficial to you but tries to make chaos on your computer and interrupts your browsing activities. Considering this Search Shock thing has no ability to provide reliable search results, so you have to get rid of it as soon as possible.
SearchShock.com hijacker can redirect you to sponsored websites which can be malicious and pose risk for your system to be infected. It also perform many destructive activities like redirecting the webpage to unknown website, taking your webpage to unknown malicious website, pointing search results to irrelevant results, slowing Internet speed and connecting you to hacked server. This unwanted hijacker can also install adware or other potentially unwanted programs that may track your browsing habits and possibly steal your personal information. Having a hijacker inside the computer definitely puts your computer in a dangerous situation. It is a very serious and quite annoying issue for many active Internet users these days. Usually this browser comes bundled with unsafe freeware, shareware or advertising-supported programs, even with various browser add-ons or toolbars. It displays more advertisements than legitimate results, so you have to get rid of it without any delay.
It belongs to browser hijacker virus which can totally mess up your browser setting.
It changes your default DNS configuration and blocks you accessing your favorite sites.
It may install some malware in your computer to make bad influence without your consent.
It degenerates your computer performance gradually.
Browser hijacker infection like SearchShock.com may enter your system as an add-on for your browser or bundled-up with some free software. Most of time, it can be downloaded from a website you visited, something you clicked on, or a pop-up that you did not request to view. You may not even know when and how you download this browser hijacker which compromises your internet security until you find your computer is fully messed up. A hijack virus is a type of computer virus known for its ability to disrupt your Internet browsing. It can redirect your Internet searches to random sites, disallow you from visiting certain Web sites, and change your Internet home page. In addition, it is able to slow your computer, decrease your available memory, and flood your computer with popup advertisements. When you detect the presence of such malicious hijacker, a complete removal is needed without any hesitation.
If you open your browser window (includes IE, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome etc.) and notice immediately that your home page has been changed to a page you do not recognize, then your browser may have been hijacked by a virus. For this type of hijack virus, it can change your homepage to SearchShock.com without your permission. Other malicious activities can be shown on your computer after hijacked are listed below:
1. It can not only change your web pages, but also alter other settings to add toolbars, pop-up advertisements, and bookmarks that you did not create.
2. It can modify the homepage settings of your web browser, more commonly by reducing your internet security options. And the worse thing is it prevents you from changing them back.
3. New toolbars or Favorites are installed that give you icons and links to web pages that you don’t want.
4. It may block you from visiting certain website you’d like to visit and show an error page instead.
5. It will display constant pop-up ads, sometimes in such large amounts that you are not able to close neither the ads nor the browser.
SearchShock.com hijacks your browser to redirect your web search results and changes the homepage and browser settings. To completely uninstall it from an infected system, manual removal is the first choice because sometimes antivirus software cannot pick up the exact computer threat timely or remove it permanently. Now most browser hijackers are quite similar to spyware and adware threats and therefore they cannot be removed with the help of popular antivirus products. Users can follow the manual guide here to get rid of this browser hijacker completely.
1. Clear all the cookies of your affected browsers.
Since this tricky hijacker virus has the ability to use cookies for tracing and tracking the internet activity of users, it is suggested users delete all the cookies before a complete removal.
Google Chrome:
Click on the “Tools” menu 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”
To remove all cookies click on the “Remove All Cookies” button
2. End the malicious process from Task Manager.
Once SearchShock.com redirect is installed, computer user may notice that CPU usage randomly jumps to 100 percent. At any time Windows always has many running processes. A process is an individual task that the computer runs. In general, the more processes, the more work the computer has to do and the slower it will run. If your system’s CPU spike is constant and remain at a constant 90-95%, 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 to quickly bring up Task Manager Window：
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 related to SearchShock.com hijacker manually.
%AppData%Local[random].exe
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\*.exe
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main StartPage
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
If your computer has been hijacked, you will see SearchShock.com opening up in every new search tab you open, or in the home page of your browser as well. This is a fake and malicious web page that appears be a search engine. Don’t be tricked by its appearance for this spam search engine is designed to confuse inexperienced users. It misleads users into thinking it is a useful search engine and then forces them to set it as the default homepage. Therefore, this page can be loaded up every time you open your browser. The only goal of such annoying hijacker is to use the artificial traffic to boost affiliate payments. It redirects users to the site they don’t really want. Some malicious sites may attempt to trick users into purchasing fake security software. In a word, any delay in removing the virus completely will increase more risk of system failure. You had better remove SearchShock.com redirect as quickly as you can.
Note: If you are not a computer expert 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 July 17, 2014 4:58 am
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