What is hijackers

Today we will talk about the hijackers. Hijackers are one of the most common types of malicious software, along with adware. In fact, the hijackers may be attributed to advertising-oriented software, since its main purpose is advertising and promotion of certain sites. A distinctive feature of the hijackers is that they take the user's browser under full control, and do not leave him a chance. The program changes the settings of the browser, the default search engine and exposes its own homepage. The user would not be able to do a single action in the browser, without the permission of hijacker. These programs could be very dangerous if you do not remove them in time. The main danger lies in the fact that a powerful hijacker won’t show up immediately. Viruses and adware can be detected by specific features, such as the blocking of system functions, or a large number of advertising and pop-ups. Powerful hijacker will not bore you with advertising, it will do its job quietly. If the user doesn’t know, that his computer is infected, he can go to a social network, bank account, or any account that is somehow important to him. At this point hijacker will launch. When the user enters the address of the site in the infected browser, hijacker will redirect him to the fake site. It’s pretty easy to create a fake website, because you only need to create a login form. The user unsuspectingly enters username and password - and will lose your account. Fraud of this kind is very frequent in recent years, and therefore I decided to create a detailed article about hijackers.

Home.SearchPile, Yoursites123, Istartpageing - what they have in common?

In order to make this article not purely theoretical, I’ll give you a few examples of the hijackers, which are most common in recent years. So, here they are: Home.SearchPile, Yoursites123, Istartpageing. These three hijackers have more than a million computers infected over the past month, and they aren’t going to stop! Think about it, maybe you have lately seen some of these names on your computer screen in a browser or in the list of programs lately? If you had, then you need to remove this program immediately, until it caused serious damage to the system. Any of these three programs could be removed in the same way, and now I'll tell you how. Here, I will describe the full sequence of necessary actions to successfully eliminate heavy contamination. It is unlikely that you will have to perform each of these points, but there is such a possibility. So, let's proceed to the removal!

How to remove a hijacker?

Most of the hijackers have the software component, which can be found in the list of installed programs. It carries out the change of browser settings, install of add-ons, and recovery tasks. It’s very simple to find it: Click "Start" then "Control Panel", "Programs and Features", and remove the program from there, which is named the same as the new search engine, which arose in the browser.

Instead of a full program, some of the hijackers use browser-based application that performs almost the same function. To get rid of it, you need to go to your browser settings, choose "Add-ons", and remove the hijacker from there.

After removing the hijacker from the control panel and from the browser, you must revert to the original browser settings. To do this, launch your browser and restore the default settings. If you do not want to reset all settings, it is enough to change the default search engine, the page that opens when you start, and a new tab. Also, sometimes hijacker changes the properties of browser shortcut, and they also have to be restored.

If these measures do not help, or if the hijacker re-appears on the computer after the removal and restart, you will need to repeat the same steps, in the safe mode. You also need to check the list of tasks, which can be set to the task of installing the hijacker, triggered by its removal.

How to prevent the hijackers to infect your computer

It’s very well, when you know how to remove an unwanted program. But it is much better not to install this program! To do this you need to follow a few simple rules of computer security:

1. Do not perform any action on the sites, that are not credible.

2. Do not disable your antivirus program when you view websites or software installation, even if you receive an offer to do it.

3. Pay attention to each item on the menu that appears when you install the software.

4. Do not underestimate the malware. If you notice even a hint of the presence of malware on your computer - immediately conduct a full scan. Procrastination will only make the situation more complicated.

Implementation of these recommendations will allow you to not worry about the hijackers, adware and even viruses because they can’t penetrate into your computer!

If you need more specific instructions, additional tips, and expert advice - did not hesitate to visit our website and leave a comment under the article about your problem. We’ll reply to you!