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My daughters computer has acquired the Google Redirect virus. Has anybody here successfully removed this from a computer?
I've spent the day searching the web for solutions, but most of them sound like snake oil.
Without a testimony from somebody I know, I'm hesitant to download and install anything that I'm not sure is safe. She had malware and virus programs installed, but this got past them both.
Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated.
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Hi Pat, I'm not sure if the below link is of any use but it seems to address the problem. http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208280684I'm heading off to download the program mentioned, install it and see what happens. I'll let you know. Out of curiosity, does the problem occur with Firefox as well as IE? Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Pat, I strongly recommend www.majorgeeks.com they are awesome. You may have to register to post but it's a highly trusted site. They've saved my backside many times. IIRC, you do not have to register to search for solutions. If you have the virus name that would speed your search.
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malwarebytes.org
That sounds more like a spyware than a virus. Malwarebytes can clean almost everything.
I also use Super Antispyware in tandem with MWB. AND the give me $75 an hour for it!!!
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Hi Pat,
I've run the rootkit fixing program from above, rebooted my computer and I'm still operational so that's a good sign.
From what I read, the Google Redirect virus is a family of viruses that seem to install into that section of the OS that is reserved and Rootkit analyzers are needed to fix the problem.
All the best,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Pat,
You might wanna send a PM to Lawrie since he isn't on here everyday and see if he has any ideas.
Good luck my friend.
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there are literally THOUSANDS of links that recommend solutions.. and there are also thousands of links that say other solutions don't work. Based on what I've read today all of the well known malware and virus removal products don't touch this.
I was hoping for personal testimony from somebody who had overcome this particular problem, not similar problems. PCMagazine's article didn't even offer a solution.
The majority of comments on Microsoft's forum say "reformat and reload Windows"
Every other similar problem I've researched in the past led to step by step instructions for removal, and those instructions were repeated in many places. I'm not seeing that today.
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Quote:
The majority of comments on Microsoft's forum say "reformat and reload Windows"
I'd save that one for a last ditch effort. It's obviously a tough one from the PC Magazine article, although the article is dated and didn't offer a solution, but offered some insight into what the virus is.
Once again I'd try to contact Lawrie. I don't have his email address, but maybe you can contact him through his website in case he doesn't see his PM:
http://www.pardyline.com.au/
Last edited by bobcflatpicker; 06/09/12 04:09 PM.
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thanks to everybody who took time to reply.I appreciate the kind of person to person support that is so common on this forum.
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Pat, please let us know the outcome. As I said, majorgeeks is usually on top of this stuff. If renaming the specific file doesn't fix it just return to the corrupted name, no harm done. Geeks has a HUMONGOUS following.
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Pat, it only took you a couple hours to find me. After weeks and weeks of batteling this problem I found a solution. I was that close to a total disk reformat and reinstall, but then tried one last thing which cost me ~$21 since the demo adware program only detected the problem and I needed to pay to get it removed, but it did it, which was well worth the cost. It is indeed malware and it is just a matter of finding the right adware program which does the job. Now I did not try them all, but I did try many of the free ones and they did not work until I was referred to ... wait for it, wait for it, Hitmanpro at http://www.surfright.nl/en combined with free TSSKiller at http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208283363 Now hitmanpro is claiming they can do it all, but I did use TSSKiller first based on advice to combine the two applications. If your still stuck we should likely chat via phone. Let me know. 
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Pat,
Man that really sucks. Been there before.
Unfortunately don't have a solution.
I might suggest a way of recovering from something like this in the future though.
I make a byte for byte image backup of my computer once a week and store it off line.
In this way I'm able to restore the computer back to the way it was before any catastrophe.
I got a virus about a year ago that pretty much trashed the Windows operating system
I ended up restoring the last image backup I did and everything was fine.
Only lost 3 days of data.
Virus programs are great most of the time, but for the times they fail an image backup is a good ace in the hole.
Best of luck with that virus and I'd like to hear how it all comes out.
Tim
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I remember a time about 2003 when I wrote a tech column for a monthly newspaper in the area. One particular month I did an article about how important it was to backup your docs, photos, music, speadsheets, databases..... That paper with that article came out on Thursday. On Saturday the people who ran the paper had a hard drive failure. The drive could not be recovered by conventional methods. They had no backup.
$2500 later, their drive was sent to and returned from some famous recovery company in Houston, and they were able to restore it. That hard drive had all the financial records, advertising, article archives.... EVERYTHING. They were out of business without it.
Of course that lesson learned led to an automated backup system that ran nightly, but wow...
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Quote:
Pat, it only took you a couple hours to find me.
After weeks and weeks of batteling this problem I found a solution. I was that close to a total disk reformat and reinstall, but then tried one last thing which cost me ~$21 since the demo adware program only detected the problem and I needed to pay to get it removed, but it did it, which was well worth the cost. It is indeed malware and it is just a matter of finding the right adware program which does the job. Now I did not try them all, but I did try many of the free ones and they did not work until I was referred to ... wait for it, wait for it, Hitmanpro at http://www.surfright.nl/en combined with free TSSKiller at http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208283363
Now hitmanpro is claiming they can do it all, but I did use TSSKiller first based on advice to combine the two applications. If your still stuck we should likely chat via phone. Let me know.
the thing about this particular bug that makes it difficult is that it has variants, and what works for one variant doesn't work for the other. I downloaded TSSKiller and HitManPro and ran them both. Neither one reported anything more than tracking cookies. I asked my daughter when she started being redirected, and she said it was Memorial day weekend... so we did a system restore to a point that was saved before then. So far so good. But, since it is a boot sector thing, I have a sneaking suspicion that when she powers down and brings it back up again, we may still have a problem. Having said that, we DID power down 3 or 4 times this evening, and each time it came back up without redirection
The MS forum indicated that a system restore does not fix the problem
FINGERS CROSSED-O-METER
NAH_____________/_YEAH
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Quote:
we DID power down 3 or 4 times this evening, and each time it came back up without redirection
Yes, system restores did not fix my problem, however hitmanpro may have done what it needed to do.
The lack of redirect is a good thing since my experience says that once you got it, it is immediately active and the redirects continue until it is removed.
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Quote:
I remember a time about 2003 when I wrote a tech column for a monthly newspaper in the area. One particular month I did an article about how important it was to backup your docs, photos, music, speadsheets, databases..... That paper with that article came out on Thursday. On Saturday the people who ran the paper had a hard drive failure. The drive could not be recovered by conventional methods. They had no backup.
$2500 later, their drive was sent to and returned from some famous recovery company in Houston, and they were able to restore it. That hard drive had all the financial records, advertising, article archives.... EVERYTHING. They were out of business without it.
Of course that lesson learned led to an automated backup system that ran nightly, but wow...
My team got called in once to do the same thing, FOR A BANK!
Then they seemed rather upset when I closed my personal account with 'em...
Go figger.
--Mac
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The company I am working for monitors corporate systems to make sure backups were done without problem, updates installed OK, everything on the network is running fine .. for thousands of computers in the area. From medical clinics to construction companies. We call it Managed Services Provider Last week we got hired to monitor a worldwide system. For some reason they seem worried about a certain router in Brazil.  Anyway, I can ask the tech guys in the morning.
Last edited by rharv; 06/10/12 10:17 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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My wife was just telling me last night that someone where she works got that virus a few weeks back.
The tech thought he got rid of it, but it showed up on the persons computer again a week later.
Finally he just had to reformat the computer.
Tim
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