Monday, February 10, 2014

How to Remove Search.startnow.com Virus from IE/Firefox/Chrome


What is Search.startnow.com Virus?

Search.startnow.com belongs to the family of browser hijacker which any computer users could encounter during the usage of their browsers. This domain will disguise itself as an ordinary website but actually it is a misleading webpage that pop up irritating ads and unknown websites with the view of tricking Internet users into multifarious cyber scams. This hijacker can influence most web browsers, especially Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox which are most widely used all over the world. Once Search.startnow.com is actually running in your computer, it will silently tamper with the default settings of your browser to further control it. As a result, your current homepage will be set as another unwanted webpage, and the default search engine will be aggressively changed into Search.startnow.com. Every time you view the web via your infected browser, you will face a mass of troubles caused by this virus. For example, your screen will be filled up with a bunch of commercial ads which constantly show up in the form of pop-up windows. Besides, when you intend to visit some websites that you frequent, this hijacker virus will keep redirecting you to other irrelevant webpages and some irritating ad and game pages will be automatically opened one by one. And if you let the virus stay long in your machine, your computer will often get stuck and experience high CPU usage. To prevent further damage and remove Search.startnow.com completely, manual removal is the most efficient method and the detailed instruction is given below.

Search.startnow.com Virus Screenshot:




Search.startnow.com virus will do much harm to the infected computer:

1) Search.startnow.com can casually modify some important settings of your web browser.
2) Search.startnow.com can trigger tons of annoying pop-up ads when you are surfing online.
3) Search.startnow.com can redirect you to a variety of unwanted and malicious websites.
4) Search.startnow.com can severely slow down your computer and even cause a system crash.
5) Search.startnow.com can monitor your online activities and pilfer your personal information.
6) Search.startnow.com can introduce many other risky viruses and malware into your system.
7) Search.startnow.com can escape from your antivirus software’s detection and removal.


How to Remove Search.startnow.com Virus from your PC?

1. Restart your computer and keep pressing F8 Key before Windows launches. Use the arrow keys to select the "Safe Mode with Networking" option, and then hit ENTER Key to continue.


2. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del at the same time to open Windows Task Manager and end Search.startnow.com process.


3. Go to Computer Control Panel from Start menu and open Folder Options. Click View and then tick “Show hidden files and folders” and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)”. Press OK.

4. Press Windows+R together to start your registry. Delete the following registry files.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\run\random
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System “DisableRegistryTools” = 0

5. Delete the following and related system files.

C:\Users\user account\Appdata\Roaming
C:\Users\user account\Appdata\Local

Note: Search.startnow.com virus is rather stubborn and malicious. It requests certain computer skills when you dealing with it in manual way. Any incident action could lead your machine to a more terrible situation.

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