browser hijacked help removing Windows 8

I have a laptop that a friend gave me that runs Windows 8. Anyway the first thing I noticed was that the browser was hijacked by safe surf. On all my other computers i always used spybot and hijack this. Unfortunately none of those is compatible with win 8. I did find a couple of viruses and removed them. But AntiVirus software doesn't remove browser hackers. Anyone know of a good free one that will work with win 8.

 

Helpful Reply

Here is what to do, and it has worked great for me:

FOR FIREFOX... IF YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW FOR OTHER BROWSERS, LET ME KNOW.

1. Click the small arrow next to the search provider icon and select Manage Search Engines…

2. Select the AVG Secure Search and Remove

3. Open the Firefox menu and select Options -> Options (or open the Tools menu and select the Options item).

4. Select the General tab and reset your home page.

5. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.

6. Press the I’ll be careful, I promise! Button.

7. Type search in the Search text box.

8. Right-click the browser.search.defaultenginename and select Reset from the context menu.

9. Type keyword in the Search text box.

10. Right-click the keyword.URL item and select Reset from the context menu.

11. Type browser.startup in the Search text box.

12. Right-click the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone item and select Reset from the context menu.

13. Restart the Mozilla Firefox.

14. AVG Secure Search is now completely removed from the Mozilla Firefox browser.

 

Right now it has google Chrome and IE on it. I haven't put FireFox (which I normally use) on it yet.

So the safe search isn't a browser hijack?

 

scroll down on this link. its not a virus, its just an add on from those stupid free anti virus sites, not everything is free without a fee, or a pain in the ass..


http://www.wikihow.com/Turn-Off-Google-Safesearch

 

O ok. I thought it was from the I win games (free game site) that she likes so much.

 

I think you are talking about something different. The problem is no matter what browser I use the proper search engine doesn't come up. I get a search bar with four dimonds over it. I actually never saw that before.

 

It's a browser hijacker in the form of a toolbar... Just remove it. You may have to remove it from each browser.


Or you could format the hard drive and re-install windows, that's always an option too.

 

screen shot ?? ..

 

I might end up doing that if I can't remove it. This thing is stubborn as all hell. I hate Windows 8.

 

does your computer have a restore point .. take it back in time before added browser crap..

 

Yea I tried that and it failed to restore to a previous state. Its sounding like I might have to start over which is going to suck cause ill lose some things like Microsoft word cause the computer didn't come with that and she lost the dam card.

 

Delete all partitions, make new partitions, format and install OS. then you'll know everything is clean. Some shit can actually hide in the boot sector so even when u reinstall the OS it's still not clean. Zero the entire drive if u wanna kill that shit and be sure it stays dead!