Google redirecting me to random advertising sites.

[Zylos]

Oh hey look, another computer problem. -.-


My parent's computer caught some sort of virus that is escaping Norton (don't ask why my parents still have it), AVG, and Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware. Anytime I click on a site using a search engine like Google, I'll get automatically redirected to a random site, usually advertisement sites or sites that try to tell me to download anti-virus shit. At first it would only happen now and then, so I just ran a few scans and caught one or two infections which I thought might be what was causing the problem. But then it started doing it for any site I clicked, and on MSN and Yahoo. Not even RMRK would come up unless I typed the address in directly.

Whatever my parents have got is eluding MBAM, which is the best one that I know of, so I need someway to search my computer for this and delete it myself. Anyone know what to do?

[Holkeye]

I had this, but it was just one symptom of a mass of them. I ended up reformatting.

[Kokowam]

Back-up while you can! ;-;

[SirJackRex]

Do you know what the Virus' name is? Because I had one similar to this, called winlogon.exe, that would do the same thing: redirect google searches; it eluded my AVs completely; completely denied any attempt to get into Safe Mode. 
How I did notice it however, was via TeaTimer, a component of SpyBot S&D. It's a very useful thing to have installed, if only for TeaTimer, a real time Registry change scanner that allows you to deny or accept any attempt to make changes to your registry.
Unfortunately, it'd try and add itself to startup every couple of seconds, and I decided to (VERY ANGRY ABOUT THIS) update SpyBot S&D and it got around TeaTimer.

I found a method of removal, but it was too late and it has pretty much bricked my windows HDD. I'm contemplating a reformat, but I'd lose 450GB of data. ;.;

Anyhow, you could try a google search for the name of this virus, and there are bound to be at least one removal tutorial, and a ton of other related but also helpful material to read over.
If you know components (or the virus itself), you can use HiJackThis, but only if you're positive you have all of the components selected, otherwise it may just reapply itself.

[Moss.]

I'm so glad I have a Mac. In four years, I've had zero viruses, and I've never had to reformat. I love it.

[haloOfTheSun]

I'm so glad I have a PC. In four years, I've had zero viruses, and I've never had to reformat it. I love it.

[Esmeralda]

I'm so glad I have a PC. In five years, I've had zero viruses, and I've never had to reformat it. I love it.

[valdred]

i hate having a pc, in two years, i have had seven viruses, and I've had to reformat it four times. i hate it.

whenever my sister borrows it she uses it in an extremely careless way though.

[Esmeralda]

i hate having a pc, in two years, i have had seven viruses, and I've had to reformat it four times. i hate it.

whenever my sister borrows it she uses it in an extremely careless way though.

So do you if you have so many problems :s

[haloOfTheSun]

i hate having a pc, in two years, i have had seven viruses, and I've had to reformat it four times. i hate it.

whenever my sister borrows it she uses it in an extremely careless way though.

Tell her to stop going to porn sites. And apparently you should too.

[Moss.]

I also don't have any anti-virus, anti-spyware, or anti-malware programs installed on my computer, and I've never had any reason to waste 2 hours scanning it.

[modern algebra]

ITT: Everybody mock Zylos for getting a virus

I also have a PC, and the only bad thing to happen to my computer was downloading Windows Vista Service Pack 2, which crashed it completely.

That said, try doing a System Restore, if they know when the virus first got onto their computer.

[SirJackRex]

You could try a system restore, but don't most nasty viruses [like this] turn it off, and doesn't that in return flush its restore points?

I had zero viruses for, hmm, like five years before this and one other one right about this time last year. The last one I got I had to reformat, but there were some weird issues with the installation itself, so it just motivated to a clean install, if anything.

[CartoonFan]

Jeez. The same thing happened to me.

Does Malwarebytes at least turn on? Try renaming the main EXE file in the program files folder and using that instead of the shortcut to activate the program. Also, use rkill to stop virus processes before trying to scan for it. That's what I did. http://www.pcabusers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48915

Now, as for removing all the viruses themselves. Malwarebytes was able to get rid of the worst ones for me, but the only thing that took the rest out was Panda Titanium on my PC. So I hate to tell you this, but it might take a commercial antivirus to kill your problem. If Panda can handle it, I'm sure Trend Micro can. So I'd recommend subscribing to that.

[Zylos]

ComboFix and Windows Recovery did the trick.

[Roph]

I'm so glad I have a PC. In four years, I've had zero viruses, and I've never had to reformat it. I love it.

I also don't have any anti-virus, anti-spyware, or anti-malware programs installed on my computer, and I've never had any reason to waste 2 hours scanning it.

[Moss.]

I'm so glad I have a PC. In four years, I've had zero viruses, and I've never had to reformat it. I love it.

I also don't have any anti-virus, anti-spyware, or anti-malware programs installed on my computer, and I've never had any reason to waste 2 hours scanning it.

So you're saying that, 4 years ago, you did get a virus?

lol