Hi there. I have a problem in my computer. Every time when I open IE browser, Search.lexside.com pops up as my default homepage and doesn’t allow me to get rid of it. I have reset to the correct homepage a million times, but it didn’t help at all. I also ran Norton full scan, it detected nothing suspicious. What should I do?
IfSearch.lexside.com is classified as browser hijacker aims at offering fraudulent search results and displaying many sponsored links or pop-up ads to interrupt user’s online activities. The hijacker changes your browser settings and it can install many unwanted applications, malicious browser helper objects (add-ons, extensions, toolbars), and third party programs to your system to reduce your PC performance. Usually it masquerades as a useful search provider to trick innocent users and hijacks their web browsers including Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox Web browsers. If your browser is hijacked, you will see various kinds of ads keep showing up on your web browser and harass you. Most of the ads are associated with dubious third parties and they are in different forms such as in-text, pop-up, pop-under, contextual and banner advertisements. Besides, when you try to open your favorite website, you may be redirected to another irrelevant page that promotes potentially unwanted programs or fake anti-malware scanners. Your Internet speed goes slow and new tab or even window with advertisement can be opened on your web browser at any time. It brings you annoyance and should be removed at once.
Search.lexside.com hijacker is extremely malicious and intrusive, not to mention damaging and annoying. It is distributed along with other free applications. That is to say, you may get this unwanted software installed after you download free programs from the Internet, especially for downloading music programs or video programs. Although the page seems like other regular search pages, it won’t really provide reliable search results for computer users. Instead, this spam search engine only presents you with sponsored links and even makes you visit suspicious or corrupted websites again and again in order to introduce more and more infections to ruin your system. The hijacker can be used for collecting and tracking information about your web browsing habits, such as what websites do you visit, what search queries do you type, how long do you stay on certain websites and then it may send to cyber criminals for illegal use. So it is advised that computer users should delete Search.lexside.com hijacker pop-up as quickly as possible to protect the computer from ruining.
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 Search.lexside.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.
1. You keep getting random pop-ups opening in new browser tabs.
2. When clicking on Google search links you get taken to sites that have nothing to do with the subject you searched for.
3. Anti-virus and firewall software won’t start.
4. Internet stops working.
5. Unknown software has been installed without your authorization.
6. You can’t access reputable sites unless you type the URL into the navigation bar
Search.lexside.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 Search.lexside.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 Search.lexside.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
Search.lexside.com is a browser hijacker known to attack Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer, and alter your default homepage and search engine, redirect your search results to questionable Web pages containing sponsored advertisements and install adware to your system without your permission. Fake search sites like this Search.lexside.com is designed only to direct unaware web surfers to potentially malicious pages in order to get affiliate payment. It can keep interrupting your browsing activities by showing you various annoying advertisements, pop-ups, coupons, special offers or web site ratings. In addition, it can slow down your Internet speed in order to generate more and more pop-up ads that fit your appetite and lure you to click on them. Stay away from these malicious ads which come from unreliable resources, all you have to do is to remove Search.lexside.com right away to avoid further damages.
Published by & last updated on September 23, 2015 1:52 am
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