I have something called “Astromenda Search” that hijacks my homepage. Every time I open Chrome, it takes me to Astromenda.com. This site acts as s generic search engine that filters results through a customized search engine. I know it is fake but I cannot find a way to get rid of it. I have removed the suspicious extensions and uninstalled the unwanted programs, but the page is still there and loads up every time I browse online. That is annoying. Is there any way I can get rid of it completely?
Astromenda.com is another spam search engine designed to trick inexperienced computer users into downloading potentially unwanted programs and redirect them to questionable web pages without any permission. It installs itself in a number of ways although the most popular method deployed is via free software downloads. Now browser hijacking malware becomes to be a new online fraud that annoys computer users so much. Hackers and malware writers seize control of your web browser and distribute a new hijacker called Astromenda Search to vulnerable computers this time. If unluckily your computer is compromised, then the first change you will notice is homepage and default search modification. This hijacker can forcibly set Astromenda.com as your default homepage and will never allow you to change the setting back to your desired web page. So every time you open the browser, you will see Astromenda Search appears itself no matter you are on Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or other browsers you have installed.
Although this page has a convincing appearance, you should not keep it on your computer because it poses a risk for computer security. This webpage is not reliable, instead it is closely associated with browser hijacker or adware that offers fraudulent search results and forces your web browser to its page constantly against your will. And the results on from Astromenda.com will have several sponsored links or ads displayed alongside of each query. In general, this unwanted Astromenda Search just tries to mislead computer users into clicking on potentially harmful links or installing PUPs on their computers. It can do nothing helpful to the PC users. Once it is running, it causes unstoppable troubles to disturb computer users. No matter what page you are trying to open, it will be continuously rerouting Google, Yahoo and Bing search engines to Astromenda.com where undesirable ads and bogus search engine are displayed. If you enter search query and start to make a search via this Astromenda Search, you will see it only shows many sponsored websites and various advertisement. During your browsing session, pop-up ads about coupons, deals or other misleading information will bombard with your PC screen and you are not able to close them. To sum up, any delay in removing this hijacker completely will increase more risk of system failure. If your browser has been hijacked by Astromenda.com redirect, it is suggested users manually remove it so that this unwanted item can be totally gone from your PC and it won’t come back to bother your PC again.
1. It can redirect you to malicious websites with numerous pop up ads to interrupt and stop you from doing anything on your computer;
2. It can turn your computer to run slowly and pose sudden death;
3. It can introduce more unwanted viruses and ransomware to do further harms;
4. It can help cyber criminals track your online activities and capture significant personal data to cause you a loss of value.
5. It can change your default DNS configuration and block you accessing your favorite sites.
6. It forcibly customizes the default homepage, search engine and bookmarks of your computer.
Astromenda.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 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 Astromenda.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 Astromenda.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
Astromenda.com (as known as Astromenda Search) has been admitted to be one of the latest malwares that pose a huge harm for every computer. It can change your homepage settings, redirect your browser to other pages constantly, display crazy and annoying pop-up windows and add unwanted wanted toolbar to your computer. In some cases, it could constantly use your internet connection to send your private information to remote servers, as well as receive ads and pop-ups from third party servers, and then it causes much slower internet connection speed and overall connection instability. After being infected, you will be forced to go to a certain search page without your approval. It is annoying to view pages you don’t want again and again. To get rid of these troubles, computer users should delete this hijacker from the PC as soon as possible.
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 on July 30, 2014 2:09 am, last updated on July 30, 2014 2:09 am
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