Is your homepage hijacked by Shop-Focus.com without your permission? Are there tons of ads on your web browser that keep disturbing you and block you from going to the site you want? Is it a virus? Will it damage your computer? Why your antivirus program can’t stop it? Learn more from this post and follow the manual removal guide you clean up your PC now.
Shop-Focus.com, (also called Shop Focus search) is categorized as a browser hijacker that can hijack all kind of web browsers including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox as well as Google Chrome and it is always bundled with freeware and Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) in order to sneak into a vulnerable computer. Generally speaking, browser hijacker like this one is not the most dangerous computer attack because it can not open backdoor and install other infections like Trojan viruses, nor spread via the same network and infect other devices like a Worm. However, we still suggest that you get rid of it as soon as possible because a hijacker can conduct many activities without your permission and keep making bad influence on your browsing activities.
Even though Shop-Focus.com has a convincing appearance and it looks like any of regular search pages such as Google or Bing, you should know that this is not a trusty page since it can add many sponsored websites to your search results. It cannot offer the same service as Google to computer users. Instead, using this phony search can make your computer vulnerable to be attacked because it can control your keyword search and then depending on what you are searching for, it shows commercials advertisements and finally slows down your computer. The program only seeks to advertise sponsored websites, so you should not trust it. Shop-Focus.com may display various advertisements to lure users to click on it. It may inform users that they are missing plugin to play video or telling that you are the winner of the day in you area and you need to fill out certain “sponsor offers” in order to claim you “free gift” or something like that. But don’t click on any of the advertisements like these. The hijacker can gather your web browsing history or search terms and then it may send this information to advertising companies or other third-parties. Therefore, you should remove Shop-Focus.com hijacker as quickly as possible to avoid computer crash or personal information leak.
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 Shop-Focus.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.
Shop-Focus.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 to 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 Shop-Focus.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 Shop-Focus.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
Shop-Focus.com is a low-quality website that displays sponsored ads more than real search results. It is closely associated with browser hijacker that can cause an immense problem to the functioning of your computer system by altering the browser settings and changing browser settings without any consent. Now many victims complain that every time they open web browsers (including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome), they see a previously unseen home page Shop-Focus.comrather than their desired homepage like Google or Yahoo and there are tons of pop-up ads within the browser as well. This hijacker can change homepage and DNS settings, install unwanted toolbar and display annoying ads and it has to be removed quickly.
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 April 27, 2015 8:11 am, last updated on April 27, 2015 8:11 am
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