If your PC is infected with Malware (malicious ware), defined in Wikipedia as “… any software used to disrupt computer operations, gather sensitive information, gain access to private computer systems, or display unwanted advertising.”, a good and painless solution is Emsisoft Emergency Kit (free for private use). Apart from stealth activities like gathering private data, malware programs as described in the article Solutions for common PC problems often leads to changes to PC settings and a considerable slow down to PC performance.
After running the downloaded program, it defaults to extracting the program to the folder C:\EEK, but you can choose a another location. It does not need installation and can be started right away by coming and running it from this folder. The advantage is it is fully “portable”, meaning you can copy this folder (“EEK”) to a USB stick and use it on other PCs. We noted because of this no shortcut is placed on desktop.
To use it go to the installation location (EEK folder), double click “Emisoft Emergency Kit Scanner” to scan the infected PC for Viruses, Trojans, Spyware, Adware, Worms, Dialers, Keyloggers and other malicious programs.
After the program starts, if you are connected to the internet, it will try to connect to update itself. If not, click “Update now” first.
After updating, click SCAN and choose one of the 3 options. It does no harm doing a complete “Malware scan”, the second option.
In this case, there was one ad-related find, not classified as “no risk”. I all the same got it deleted. You can choose to quarantine the finds if you are not sure if they should be deleted. In this case, they are are placed in a safe area where they do no harm.
- After this, re-start the PC. The problems should be gone. You may have to do some additional cleaning though, like a full scan with the Antivirus. This can take some time, but it is worthwhile.
- Go to your browser, under settings (for Firefox => Tools) and check the add-ons or extensions. If any are left by the program, remove ALL you did not install and remove them.
- Under browser settings, go to “Search” and delete any funny Searches. I personally only tolerate Google, which I make the default search. Bing & Yahoo are also acceptable IF you like them.
System requirements
According to the publisher, regarding whether it would work on your PC:
Unless you have a rather outdated PC from the late 90s, the answer is most likely yes, assuming that you’re using Windows 7, 8 or 10 – with the latest service pack installed. All features are fully functional on x64 systems too. While running, Emsisoft Emergency Kit uses about 200 MB of your RAM which is quite low considering the 10 million signatures that it must load. If your PC has at least 1 GB of RAM, this will be perfect.
Download Emsisoft Emergency Kit
https://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/eek/
Alternatives
- Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
- AWD Cleaner