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When using search engines, I am often gettin g redirected to unrelated sites. How do I stop it?

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  • Last reply by the-edmeister

Recently (this past week) when using a search engine with Firefox (Yahoo, Google, etc) and clicking on the link, I began to get redirected to an unrelated and unwanted web site. This is now happening every time I use the search engine. How do I stop this without eliminating Firefox as a browser?

Recently (this past week) when using a search engine with Firefox (Yahoo, Google, etc) and clicking on the link, I began to get redirected to an unrelated and unwanted web site. This is now happening every time I use the search engine. How do I stop this without eliminating Firefox as a browser?

All Replies (1)

Probably caused by search redirect Malware.

Install, update, and run these programs in this order. They are listed in order of efficacy.
(Not all programs detect the same Malware, so you may need to run them all to solve your problem.)
These programs are all free for personal use, but some have limited functionality in the "free mode" - but those are features you really don't need to find and remove the problem that you have.
Note: If your Malware infection is bad enough and you are mis-directed to URL's other than what is posted, you may have to use a different PC to download these programs and use a USB stick to transfer them to the afflicted PC.

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
SuperAntispyware - http://www.superantispyware.com/
AdAware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Spybot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
Windows Defender: Home Page - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/prod.../default.mspx
Also, if you have a search engine re-direct problem, see this:
http://deletemalware.blogspot.com/2010/02/remove-google-redirect-virus.html

If these don't find it or can't clear it, post in one of these forums for specialized malware removal help:
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/index.php
http://forum.aumha.org/
http://www.spywareinfoforum.com/
http://bleepingcomputer.com