Browser Security Test

Help! My Browser Is Hijacked

What happened?

When you mistype a URL, you get redirected to some search web site you never heard of and definitely never intended to use.

When you start your browser, you get a home page you didn't set up, and you can't get rid of it.

Your browser now has a toolbar and you did not install it.

Your Favorites contain links you never put there.

You try to surf to a site and your browser ends up on a completely different one.

And, finally, you get too many popup ads and the browsing is really slow.

Any of these (except possibly the last one) is a symptom of a hijacked browser. Usually it means that a piece of software that changes the behaviour of your browser was installed on your computer without you knowing it. The goal of hijacking is to bring you to hijacker's web site and make money on advertising.

So what can I do? Cleaning up - step by step.

Step one: Preparing for the clean up.

You will need to dowload and install some software. If Internet Explorer has become so clogged with hijackers that it is difficult to surf, start with downloading another browser - Firefox. You can use it now to download the necessary software and you can use it later for your regular surfing if you like it.

• Surf to www.mozilla.org and click on the big green "Free Download" link in the center of the page:

  

  The download should start. Save the downloaded file where you can easily find it, for example on the Desktop.

• Once the download is finished, you can launch the installation by double-clicking on the downloaded file. You will get a dialog box saying "Extracting..." and after a while you will get a dialog looking similar to the one on the picture below:

  

• Follow the instructions on the screen to install Firefox.
• Once the installation completes click on "Finish". This will start the Firefox browser. When starting for the first time it will ask you if you want to import bookmarks and options from other installed browsers. You can choose "Don't import anything" for now, so that the hijacked home page is not imported to Firefox. You can always import your bookmarks later.
• You will get another dialog box asking if you want Firefox to be your default browser. Choose "No" for now. If you will like it, you can make it the default later.
• Finally, Firefox is up and running:

  

• Now you are ready for surfing

You will need to download the software that will help you remove the hijackers. There are many spyware removal products on the market. Our current favorites are Ad-Aware from LavaSoft and HijackThis written by Merijn Bellekom. Several people also recommened Spybot Search&Destroy available at www.spybot.info. If you find another product that you really like, email us at bcheck@scanit.be and share your experience. We would like to update this list.

You can download HijackThis here. Unzip HijackThis.exe and put it somewhere where you can easily find it.

Ad-Aware can be downloaded here. Choose Personal Edition if you want the free version. Download and install it.


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