No matter how many times or to what I change my homepage to, each time I start up Firefox it keeps loading “Wisersearch.com” as my homepage. I tried to remove it from “All programs” in control panel but nothing found. What should I do? How do I get rid of this redirect thing and get my homepage back?
Now hackers and malware writers still keep compromising users’ internet security. This time they seize control of your web browser and distribute a new hijacker virus called Wisersearch.com to vulnerable computers all over the world. This threat always comes as an add-on for your browser or bundled-up with some free software. It can be attached into any type of browsers like IE, Firefox and Google Chrome. As soon as it is downloaded, it makes all sorts of changes to your web browser. The first thing you may detect on the computer is homepage get changed without your permission. Every time you launch the browser, instead of opening your favorite homepage as usual, Wisersearch.com page comes up. Hackers use it to force you to go to certain sites or see advertisements, and get money based on the number of users that visit them.
Ways to be infected with Wisersearch.com hijacker virus could be resulting from visiting illegal webpages, downloading unknown free software or opening spam email. It will be set as the startup page on browser so that it can pop up each time you attempt to go online from the hijacked browser. This website looks like any other regular search pages like Google and Bing but it won’t provide any reliable results. You may not notice in the beginning because it doesn’t show its evil on the appearance. However, once you find that don’t leave in inside the compromised system for this hijacker can track user’s web browsing habits, record addresses of visited sites and send collected data to a remote server. Furthermore, it modifies essential web browser settings, decreases default security level and makes infected PC unstable. A complete removal is needed to fix this problem and restore browser back to original status before the browser hijacker attacks.
Homepage is changed without any permission.
Desktop background is gone somehow.
Browser setting is modified.
Browsers like IE and Firefox works slowly.
Registry files are corrupted.
Considering Wisersearch.com redirect can’t be fixed by any security tools, uses can use the manual guide below to fix this issue without any risk.
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 Wisersearch.com virus 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
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
Many victims have no clue when and how they are attacked by Wisersearch.com redirect because this hijacker can be added to the target machine without any approval. Once installed, it replaces your currently selected homepage and default search provider. Although it looks like regular search website, it adds many sponsored links to your search results and can cause constant redirections. Since it always comes bundled with free music players, PDF creators, various recording tools, etc. Be careful with the software you are downloading and always check every items on the installation steps. Refuse installing any unknown applications or add-ons which provides an entrance of this hijacker during the installation process. It is suggested users don’t spend time trying to change browser to stop these attacks or run any security tools, both of them are not working. We highly recommend PC users to remove Wisersearch.com as soon as possible before it messes up the whole computer system.
Note: If you are not knowledgeable enough to be able to distinguish the location of this virus, or you are afraid of making mistake during the manual removal, please contact experts from YooCare Online Tech Support for further help.
Published by on November 21, 2013 6:16 am, last updated on January 8, 2014 2:08 am
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