Browser hijacker help.

Rev

Hope someone can help.

My uncle had downloaded or been on God knows what site and now he appears to have a browser hijacker.

When the browser (Firefox and chrome) starts it goes to loadstart.net I've checked the settings and restored defaults but that's not helped.

There's nothing dodgy looking in addons and nothing in installed programs etc.

I've ran maleware bytes and an avast boot time scan. They found issues which have been deleted but the browser hijacker is still there.

Can anyone tell me how to sort it?

Thanks.

interstellaflyer

Your uncle may not necessarily done anything untoward, these browser hijackers often come on the back of quite innocent downloads, I've had to fix my daughters laptop a couple of times, I can't remember exactly how to remove it but what I do remember is that you need to remove it from your browser, in our case Google Chrome. Try doing a search on removing loadstart.net there's bound to be something out there in internet land.

debitcardmayhem

adware cleaner
https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/

jrt
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/junkware-removal-tool/

Rev

interstellaflyer wrote: »

Your uncle may not necessarily done anything untoward, these browser hijackers often come on the back of quite innocent downloads, I've had to fix my daughters laptop a couple of times, I can't remember exactly how to remove it but what I do remember is that you need to remove it from your browser, in our case Google Chrome. Try doing a search on removing loadstart.net there's bound to be something out there in internet land.

Thanks but I have googled. I couldn't find anything besides one site which says to run maleware bytes. That's why I posted.

Rev

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

adware cleaner
https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/

jrt
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/junkware-removal-tool/

Thanks. Have ran those and they found nothing.

interstellaflyer

Rev wrote: »

Thanks but I have googled. I couldn't find anything besides one site which says to run maleware bytes. That's why I posted.

No, you are right, I've just looked and I couldn't find anything either, go to control panel, internet options and make sure it is not set as internet home page.

Rev

interstellaflyer wrote: »

No, you are right, I've just looked and I couldn't find anything either, go to control panel, internet options and make sure it is not set as internet home page.

Home page is set to google

interstellaflyer

Rev wrote: »

Home page is set to google

Ok, you could check the program has been removed by going to add and remove programs, if it's not listed then you will have to go into google settings, it's a while ago and the highjacker we had was Trovi but I can remember having to delete the program and remove it from google settings as well, my memory is a bit sketchy so it may be advisable to wait for someone more knowledgeable to come along or take the computer to someone qualified to fix such issues.

Rev

interstellaflyer wrote: »

Ok, you could check the program has been removed by going to add and remove programs, if it's not listed then you will have to go into google settings, it's a while ago and the highjacker we had was Trovi but I can remember having to delete the program and remove it from google settings as well, my memory is a bit sketchy so it may be advisable for someone more knowledgeable to come along or take the computer to someone qualified to fix such issues.

Thanks. I've already checked add/remove programs and there's nothing in there.


If I can't remove it I'll just reinstall Windows. I'd just like to see if I can remove it first.

Rev

I'm a bit concerned though that if I reinstall Windows I usually use Mozbackup to backup the Firefox profile and restore it so he doesn't lose his bookmarks and more importantly passwords which he never remembers.

But if this is part of the Firefox profile I'll basically just be reinstalling the hijacker with the fresh copy of Windows.


Or does it not work like that?

hans_2

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