How To Remove Google Redirect Virus

What is Google Redirect Virus?

Google redirect virus is a dangerous malware created by on-line crooks to mess up your Google search results. The developers of this virus know very well that people use Google to search for their daily needs and thus they manipulate some settings on your computer so that you continue to get redirected to unexpected and malicious results. As a computer user, it is entirely up to you to update yourself with the latest viruses which are making the rounds in systems worldwide. You naturally would not want your computer to incur such viruses, so it helps to be aware of what the symptoms are and know what the solution is in case it does harm your computer. Here, we will take a look at the signs to watch out for if your computer has this virus and learn how you can remove the virus.

Whether you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, Nestscape Navigator or some other browser, it is possible that you would encounter this virus. This threat is capable of infecting all the browsers equally because It manipulates the core settings of your computer and your computer starts to redirect you to shady websites. Whenever you search for a particular term, this virus will redirect your search to random or unrelated sites. This threat gets Installed through a Trojan, this manipulation of the search engine results may cause annoying pop-ups, sluggishness on your system and other computer problems. It is also possible that you’ll see the correct set of results from Google, but once you click on any of those results, you’ll get redirected to a website which you never intended to visit in first place.

Even If Everything You’ve Tried So Far Has Failed, Trust Me,This Will Work!

Working Solution For Google Redirect Virus

You must be thinking how can I be so sure about this? I’ve faced this problem myself for more than a week trying to remove this virus. I precisely know that my computer got this virus when I downloaded some music off a website which I visited for the very first time. I saw a javascript pop-up and I closed it immediately thinking It is something malicious. I thought no damage was done. Right after that, I searched on Google and found strange things happening. I tried to dig further and discovered that I’m a victim of redirect virus. I tried various solutions to remove this virus but no joy. I spent my weekend on this problem and It was so scary to search for so many things and sit on the workstation till 4 AM in the morning till I’m fully tired and virus was still laughing at me. I did a lot of research after that and discovered that It is a Rootkit and It runs behind windows services and very hard to get caught. Finally, I found a solution which worked for me in no time! Can you imagine trying to remove the virus for a week and then the real solution just takes a few minutes ? I believe this solution will work for most of the guys infected with this virus. Try this method and you’ll not regret.  Follow these steps to remove this virus : 1. First of all, you’ll need to download a genuine spyware remover. You need to download and install this highest rated Spyware Remover called Spyware Doctor. This software will find all the malicious files which are helping the virus in doing the damage. Please keep in mind that since virus creates its files deep inside system folders, you may not be able to find those files manually. Even when system folders have thousands of files, It is almost impossible to find culprit files. Download this software, do a scan and remove the culprit files. Please do everything in Safe Mode. 2. After you are done with Step No.1, please Download Free TDSSKiller Utility From Kaspersky Labs and run it in your system. This utility is very small on size (just 900 KB Size) and scans your computer for hidden services. Please note that hidden services are very hard to find but this utility does its job very well in finding and removing malicious hidden services. This is essential in getting rid of TDSS rootkits. 3. Restart your computer and now the virus is gone! Search in any browser and check for yourself! That’s it! If you don’t have any kind of spyware protection on your computer, go for one. Without any protection, you are almost inviting hackers to intrude with your computer. Please follow the above steps literally and please thank me (I deserve it!) by putting your comments below! If you have any questions, concerns or problems, please don’t hesitate to shoot an email to webmaster [at] review-buddy.com and I’ll get back to you within a few hours, I promise.

This image shows exactly what happens when your computer is infected with Google Redirect Virus :

Now that you already have an idea about how the this virus affects all browsers instead of just one, let us learn about the harm that it can cause your system. Aside from having to deal with pop-ups and a slowdown of your computer, the virus will also affect your system just like a typical malware does. This virus has the capability to bypass antivirus scanners and the infect your computer. Always make sure that antivirus database is always updated on your computer.

Ask these questions and find out how the virus infected your computer :

1. Did you click on any banner which actually looked suspicious?
2. Do you download videos, music, screen savers, software from file sharing sites which are actually note legitimate ?
3. Did you install something recently in your computer without verifying its integrity and source?
4. Did you suddenly saw a window which showed a fake scanner and you clicked on a button?

These are just some reasons which can be used by crooks to infect your computer. There are numerous ways hackers have developed to infect people’s computer with nasty viruses and you must pay close attention to what is happening in your computer. Don’t respond to any dubious ads and never click on anything which actually looks very suspicious to you.

Can’t Get Rid of The Virus ?

What are you supposed to do about the problem? You basically have two options when dealing with this virus. First, you can clean the registry database by getting deep into the inner files of your system and removing the files associated with the virus. However, this is not a step that is recommended to beginners or those who are not that tech-savvy. Although I’ll also outline manual removal steps for this virus later in this post but follow those steps carefully otherwise you might end up doing more harm than good.

Here are some things you’ll experience when Google redirect virus is active in your computer.

1. It might corrupt your computer’s registry and show you "Blue Screen of Death".
2. Desktop background might get changed automatically to a strange image.
3. None of your browsers will perform as they should.
4. Task manager and other legitimate program may get blocked automatically.

How To Remove Google Redirect Virus Automatically

Automatic removal of this virus is highly recommended because you can remove it without any manual intervention. Although If you want to remove the virus manually, you can try the steps I’ve written below. I highly recommend the automatic removal approach which will not only remove this virus but also help you in getting rid of lots of other threats which might be hiding in your computer.

To remove this malware easily, I highly recommend products like Spyware Doctor or Malware Bytes Anti-Malware. These products will remove the virus and also protect your computer from such instances in future.

How To Remove Google Redirect virus Manually?

Automatic removal is the best approach to remove this virus, however If you want to try manual removal steps, you can do so. Please note that it is not easy to remove Google Redirect Virus manually and you might end up doing more harm to your computer than good. Therefore, If you are not expert with computer, please follow this method with utmost care or opt for automatic removal method.

Removal Solution No. 1

A) Please click Start–>Control Panel—>System—>Hardware–>Device Manager—>View–>Show Hidden Devices.
B) Scroll down to “Non-plug and Play Drivers” and click the plus icon to explore those drivers.
C) Then you need to search for “TDSSserv.sys”. Once you find it, right click on it and “Disable”.
E) You need to make sure that you don’t un-install "TDSSserv.sys", otherwise the virus will re-instate itself upon next reboot.
F) Restart Your PC and now you should be able to surf Normally. Download Spyware Doctor and remove all traces like browser objects, infected DLL files and registry entries.

It is likely that creators of this virus have updated and the first solution may not work. In that case, please check windows hosts file to make sure everything is alright there. Hackers usually make a false entry into that file and thus infect the computer.

Removal Solution No. 2

A) Locate “My Computer” icon on the desktop and click on it.
B) Please browse to folder C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc . You may have Windows operating system installed on D: or other partition, please follow it accordingly.
C) In the “etc” folder, you’ll see a file called “hosts”. You need to edit this file, please right click on it and open it in notepad. If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7,  you might face problem editing the host file. Please refer to this article from Microsoft and this should help you in editing the host file. Here is the link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923947
F) In the hosts file, you’ll see several entries with a “#” sign in front of them, please ignore those entries. Apart from those entries, you’ll see a entry

127.0.0.1       localhost

The above entry is genuine and you don’t need to remove it. If you see other entries below the above entry, please remove those entries as those entries might be causing the redirect. Once you remove the malicious entries, please save the hosts file and close it.

Removal Solution No. 3

A) Click on Start—>Settings—Control Panel.
b) Double-click the ‘Network Connections’ icon and right-click ‘Local Area Connection’ icon.
c) Select ‘Properties’ from the menu and highlight the ‘Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)’ option.
d) Click ‘Properties’ and in the next window ensure the option ‘Obtain DNS server address automatically’ radio button is selected.

Click ‘OK’ and close the dialog. These are all steps which should certainly help you in removing the redirect virus so that Google search results can function normal again. If you find that problem still persists, don’t hesitate in using a Spyware Remover to get rid of the infection and return your computer back to normal.