Google Redirect Virus - The Truth By Katie Martins
The Google Redirect Virus is a common infection which is currently installing itself on millions of computers around the World. You can normally tell if you have this virus by the way your PC will "redirect" you to fake websites each time you click a link in the search engines. You'll normally find that the links will take you to fake product websites, or to fake search engines; as well as opening random tabs on your web browser as well. You likely got this virus from either a Trojan Horse infection, fake antivirus website or another virus (typically "rogue antivirus" software). Unfortunately, the Google Redirect Virus is a lot difficult to remove, because of how it's considerably different than most infections. Normally, you should just be able to remove a virus by using antivirus / anti-spyware software, however this virus is "immune" to most of the popular antivirus tools out there because of the way it just changes a few of your system's settings. The problem is that the redirect virus will just install onto your computer and change a the settings which your computer uses to handle "redirects" online. The virus basically leaves no trace of it ever being on your PC, leading most antivirus programs to struggle to remove it. The way this virus works is to basically hijack the redirects your web browser makes, and then takes you to a random advertising website instead of the one you wanted. Each time you click on a search engine link, you don't actually get taken to the target site straight away - you are redirected through Google.com / Yahoo.com / Bing.com instead. This allows the redirect virus to intersect this redirect and then take you to a different site, which means that if you want to remove this virus completely from your PC (who doesn't?), then you need to basically change the settings which it's infected to make them return back to their old selves. This is quite difficult if you don't have the right tools. Removal of the Google Redirect Virus is actually quite simple if you have the correct tool to do it. First off, you should not use a typical antivirus tool, as they just look for malicious applications that are running on your PC. Antivirus programs will not be able to remove the redirect virus because they will not be able to identify the infection that's hiding inside the settings files of your PC. I've found the best way to get rid of this virus is to use a program called "ComboFix", which is freely available online. This tool can quickly fix the infected settings inside
your system, and if you have the correct instructions for it, will remove the redirect virus for good from your PC.
Google redirect virus