Solved I think My Browsers Have Been Hijacked

[Brucex64]

I think my browser homepages may have been hijacked. When I start firefox, Chrome, or IE the first page is an address that begins with esurf.biz. Then I can go to any of my bookmarks but sometimes a spam page will also load.

How do I get rid of this?

 

[Hacb]

can you try changing your homepage, if that does not work, then we know you'vebeen hijacked

 

[Zoloft]

One of the best free tools for cleaning up your browsers is ADWCleaner. Be careful googling it, as fake versions do exist. Here is a good direct link. https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/ After running it, you will likely still need to manually change your homepages back to whatever you wish. Warning: you will essentially be forced to reboot your computer after the cleaning completes.

 

[Brucex64]

Last night, I ran a scan with MS Security Essentials and it found nothing. I did try changing the homepage but it doesnt work. My homepage is actually still there, but the first thing it loads is the "malware" page, then if I hit the home icon it will go to my homepage. And intermittently while browsing another ad page will come up. This happens on all browsers.

Now, I ran ADW Cleaner and it did clean some stuff, but the browsers still act the same.

 

[Brucex64]

Update.... I ran MalwareBytes free edition and it cleaned a few more things. Now all the browsers open up to my homepage. So far I have not had any ad tabs pop up. It appears to be fixed but I'll keep an eye out for anything weird.

 

[mipak]

@ Zoloft

hi ... recently, i also got hit by esurf.biz but originally, i didn't really give it much thought as it only affected my internet explorer, opera and epic privacy browsers which i use for testing. my main browser is pale moon but that was fine.

however, over the last 24 hours, i've tried more 'cleaning' programs than i care to think of, none of which give any indication as far as i can see as to whether it's free or not. some of them took hours before the various results appeared on screen and it was only at that point that i discovered that it would only 'clean' if i bought it.

so ... a lot of time wasted!

the only programme that allowed me to get it to do its cleaning job (without paying) was YAC (Yet Another Cleaner). it seemed to be very thorough but after i rebooted, esurf.biz was still there.

ADWCleaner also wanted money after the scan but i thought i'd have another go. tried the link in your post but it gave me a '404 not found' result.

could you give me the full url path please and i'll try again.

........... and if that fails, i'll just have to re-format my c:\ drive ... unless anyone else has got any other good suggestions.

cheers & thanks in advance .......

 

[Hacb]

tried the link in your post but it gave me a '404 not found' result.

hmm, thats odd.. I just tried the link and it worked fine.

 

[Jacee]

Please see this blog from Malwarebytes' about YAC https://blog.malwarebytes.org/fraud-scam/2015/03/yet-another-cleaner-yet-another-stealer/

AdwCleaner is free and always has been! ]Page not foundAdwCleaner[/URL][/B] by Xplode

 

[Jacee]

Please see this blog by Malwarebytes' about YAC https://blog.malwarebytes.org/fraud-scam/2015/03/yet-another-cleaner-yet-another-stealer/

AdwCleaner by Xplode is free and always has been. AdwCleaner Download

 

[Brucex64]

ADW Cleaner was free for me to use also. I would recommend trying MalwareBytes. It worked this time and in past times too. They have a free version.

 

[mipak]

think i know where i went wrong when i got the '404' code re. adwcleaner. most of the time when i want to activate a link in an email or a web page etc., i copy & paste it into my browser for no other reason other than habit. this time, i failed to see that this one for adwcleaner was a shortened version of the url thus the error. when i just clicked on it, it quickly opened the correct page.

when i downloaded the same programme a couple of days ago, it acted very differently apart from having the same gui.
this time, it was very quick while it did its work but unfortunately after i rebooted a couple of times, it didn't manage to shift esurf.biz so i'm now resigned to re-format etc. at least, it will clear out all the junk including esurf and work a bit faster which i'm quite happy about.

by the way, the article on yac made interesting reading. i'll certainly avoid that in future.

many thanks for your various comments ... they're very much appreciated.