Remove Piesearch.com Redirect Virus Effectively
My web browser was hijacked by a virus a few days ago but I fail to remove it after having tried many methods. If I search something, it presents strange results to me. For example, when I click on a search result which should link to an eBay page, it shows me the website Piesearch.com or other unknown websites. That’s very disturbing. I tried to remove it with an antivirus program but it’s unable to delete it. What can I do remove it completely?
What Is Piesearch.com and Is It Harmful?
Piesearch.com is a website which is related to browser hijacker or adware that hijacks the web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. It pretended to be a useful platform so that to satisfy user’s shopping demand but in fact was with the evil purpose of coaxing the masses of innocent users to make transactions and defraud their money. Once your browser is hijacked, your online activities, for example, how many times you visit a website and how long you stay, will be monitored without authorization. As soon as the browser is hijacked, the junk files and useless cookies will leave inside the history record. It is really dangerous that this redirect virus stays on the infected computer for a long time.
By misleading users to open Piesearch.com, criminals can boost the traffic of the website and earn money from the ads it promotes. The hackers utilize this redirect virus to hijack browsers, collect search terms and boost traffic of their own website or other affiliated websites. Your system will suffer unwanted consequences including application malfunction, network disconnection and blue screen of death if it’s infected. In addition, this redirect virus can install a malicious toolbar on the browsers and it is hard to remove it through conventional uninstall method. Unluckily, Piesearch.com hijacker provides no uninstall feature and hides in the back stage so that security tool cannot detect its existence. It is no doubt that Piesearch.com redirect virus will do anything good in the infected computer, and you should remove it as soon as possible.
To manually remove the redirect virus, you should acquire sufficient computer knowledge and skills. If you are afraid of damaging the system when dealing with the virus by yourself, use a professional removal tool instead.
Payloads of the Redirect Virus
1 It frequently sends out error messages and misleading ads to trick users to buy their products.
2 It can start up automatically when Windows logs in, taking up massive CPU resources.
3 It may drop other types of threats like virus, Trojan and spyware onto your computer to do more harmful actions.
4 It can embed redirect information into your system files to send all of your search results where it wants you to go.
5 It will fail to response quickly as they usually do because the infection changes some settings of the Registry.
6 Credit card numbers, passwords, pictures and other sensitive information are transmitted to unscrupulous people.
Helpful ways to remove Piesearch.com
The Piesearch.com domain appears to be a legitimate website which is promoted to help Internet users have an enjoyable online experience. According to this scenario, some users will resort to manual removal method, which they can find online. But the problem is some users are not very familiar with computer mechanism. The fact is that the number of viruses always increases rapidly and most antivirus programs don’t have the information of the newly-created viruses in their data base. Moreover, this browser hijacker can block the security tools installed on the infected PCs and hide itself deeply on the systems. Therefore, in order to completely get rid of Piesearch.com, you have to delete all the malicious files, plug-ins as well as registry entries associated with the redirect virus thoroughly.
1. Stop the running unwanted processes via Windows Task Manager
1) Press Ctrl+Alt+Del keys at the same time to open the Task Manager.
2) In the default Processes tab, search for the related processes of Piesearch.com then select them, click on the End Process button to disable them all.
2. Remove the related programs of Piesearch.com from the computer
1) Click on the Start icon to open the menu then click on Control Panel.
2) Find out the Programs headline in the pop-up window, then click on the Uninstall a Program link under it.
3) In the Programs and Features, search for the related programs of Piesearch.com from the list, select them then click on the Uninstall on the top column to remove them one by one.
4) Confirm the uninstall request then follow the wizard to complete the removal.
3. Reset the browser and restore the browser
1) Start the browser.
2) Reset the browser settings to clean the traces left by Piesearch.com.
Internet Explorer
Click on Tools-> click on Internet Options-> click on Advanced tab-> click on Reset button.
Mozilla Firefox
Click on Firefox button-> locate Help-> click on Troubleshooting Information-> click on the Reset Firefox button.
Google Chrome
Click on wrench icon-> click on Settings-> click on Show Advanced Settings link-> click on Reset Browser Settings button.
3) Reset the browser homepage manually.
Internet Explorer
Click on General tab in the Internet Options dialog-> type a new address in the homepage box-> save the changes.
Mozilla Firefox
Click on Options from the Firefox menu-> click on General tab-> input a correct URL in the homepage section-> save the modification.
Google Chrome
Find out the Advance section in the Settings-> select the Show Home Button-> click on the displayed Change link-> set a new address as the homepage then save the reset.
4) Reboot the browser once finished.