PC Help

JWM

I'm getting a weird error on my laptop.

When i type an address into the address bar it does a search on it rather than just gong to the page. This is happening on all 3 browsers - Firefox, IE and Chrome.

I've googled it but that just seems to be browser specific - I refreshed Firefox but no joy.

tried restoring to the last restore point but that failed.

Can anyone help please - its really annoying!!

esuhl

I'd run a quick scan with adwCleaner:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner/

JWM

Couldn't run it. Went for about 5 mins then got the error:
AdwCleaner has stopped working
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.

Thanks anyway

esuhl

That definitely sounds dodgy. I suspect you have malware installed on your machine.

Do you have an antivirus installed? Update it, and run a full scan. Then run MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/

And then run adwCleaner again.

AndyPix

Yep that does sound like malware.
I also suspect the search results it is bringing up are not genuine and are fed by the malware.


Run malwarebytes as sugested above, and then adw cleaner to tidy up


Let us know if this doesnt shift it

JWM

esuhl wrote: »

That definitely sounds dodgy. I suspect you have malware installed on your machine.

Do you have an antivirus installed? Update it, and run a full scan. Then run MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/

And then run adwCleaner again.

Well I have AVG installed but I ran Malwarebytes as well and it removed a few files. Then re-run adwCleaner again and it ran OK.

But it still didn't fix the problem!!

MarkFromCornwall

OP, does it make any difference if you go to Options / Privacy / "Change preferences for search engine suggestions…" and play with the settings there (this is for Firefox 54: there may be equivalent settings in other browsers).

jshm2

If malwarebytes has cleared the issue as you've saud then it may be a case of going through your BHO's and extensions and disabling them.

JWM

MarkFromCornwall wrote: »

OP, does it make any difference if you go to Options / Privacy / "Change preferences for search engine suggestions…" and play with the settings there (this is for Firefox 54: there may be equivalent settings in other browsers).

Its just set to Google - although the search results come back as 'VirginMedia' which is my provider

JWM

jshm2 wrote: »

If malwarebytes has cleared the issue as you've saud then it may be a case of going through your BHO's and extensions and disabling them.

Sorry not very techie - could you explain further?

JWM

JWM wrote: »

Its just set to Google - although the search results come back as 'VirginMedia' which is my provider

I removed all the search engines and just just left Google - now it is coming back as Google (and not Virgin Media)