A browser hijacker, known as OurSurfing.com, comes with freeware products on the Internet. Once installed, this browser hijacker will reconfigure your browser to open up its home page and set its default search engine. In this guide, we’ll help you get rid of this virus in step by step manner.
Download the Diagnostic
There are certain situations when missing entries in your registry and registry corruption causes this problem. Try running a registry scan to identify if there are any such issues.
- Click the button below to download and install the Diagnostic
- Perform a Registry scan and fix any problems detected.
- Restart your computer.
Estimated Download Time: 10 Seconds
Clean Boot your PC
Clean boot your Windows PC. To do so, fire up Task Manager and disable all startups.
1. Press Windows Key + X; select Task Manager option.
2. In the new dialog that appears, select Startup tab and uncheck everything that you see in the list except your Antivirus.
3. Exit out of the screen; do a reboot.
Delete Malicious Files
Attack backbone of the virus — delete malicious files stored in the temporary directory.
1. Press Windows Key + R to open up Run dialog box.
2. Type “AppData,” click OK.
3. Open following location:
- ..\Local\Temp
4. Delete all files, subfolders.
Remove Malicious Add-On
An add-on in installed in your browser named DefaultSearchProtected, which is malicious in nature. Load the page containing add-ons list, and disable this add-on.
1. Open Mozilla Firefox; click Tools menu, select Add-Ons.
2. Click Extensions tab in the left panel.
3. As you can see in below screenshot, DefaultSearchProtected is installed and activated. Click “Remove” button.
4. You’ll be prompted to restart the browser for changes to take effects. Click “Restart now” link.
Remove Malicious Startup Code
OurSurfing browser hijacker adds a startup code in Firefox target box to every time load malicious website upon startup. Remove that code from Firefox Properties dialog box.
1. Right click Mozilla Firefox desktop icon; select Open file location.
2. The target file will be highlighted in File Explorer as in the case of Windows 10/ 8.1/ 8, or Windows Explorer as regarding earlier versions.
3. Temporarily minimize that window; go to Desktop; delete existing Firefox shortcut. Besides, delete Start Menu shortcut of Mozilla Firefox.
4. Restore the minimized window. Right-click firefox.exe file, select Properties.
5. Click Shortcut tab.
6. In the Target text box, delete everything that you see besides the following path:
- “C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” (quotes included)
Meaning, you’ll see a malicious URL after Firefox application path. Delete that URL and keep only application path.
7. Now your Mozilla Firefox Properties dialog should look like this:
8. Click OK.
9. Right-click firefox.exe file, select Send to | Desktop (Create Shortcut).
Remove Malicious Search Engine
Next, go ahead and delete the malicious search engine namely OurSurfing from program preferences.
1. In Firefox, click Tools | Options.
2. Click Search tab in left. Now you can see the OurSurfing malicious search engine is registered in your browser configs.
3. Select OurSurfing under One-Click Search Engines list box; click Remove button. If it is registered twice, delete both the entries (as in my case).
4. Select Default Search Engine like Google.
5. Re-open Firefox.
Remove Malicious Home Page
Set Firefox to automatically load a blank page on startup instead of malicious URL.
1. Type “about:preferences” in Search Box. Press ENTER.
2. Click General tab.
3. Set the following:
- When Firefox starts: Show a blank page
4. Keep “Home Page” text box clean. Delete everything that you see in this textbox.
5. Exit and re-open the browser.
Clear All History
Delete your browser history, cookie files, and cache contents.
1. Click History menu.
2. Select Clear recent history.
3. It opens up a new dialog box.
4. Select “Everything” from “Time range to clean” drop down box.
5. Check-up all the boxes; click “Clean Now” button.
Set New Tab Parameters
After disinfecting the virus, you might see some error text while opening new tabs. To fix this issue change new tab parameters as shown below:
1. In the Address Bar, type “about:config”
2. Press ENTER.
3. Click “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
4. It opens up a tab with a list of all configurations. Type “newtab.url” in Search Box.
5. Now you see “browser.newtab.url” under Preference Name column. Double click it to open.
6. Change its value to “about:blank” and click OK.
7. Restart the browser.
Update Browser
Finally, make sure your browser is set to update itself to the latest version automatically. It will ensure you get latest security patches to deal with this kind of browser hijackers.
1. Type “about:preferences#advanced” in Search Box. Press ENTER.
2. Click Update tab under Advanced category.
3. Select the option named “Automatically install updates (recommended: improved security)” option.
4. Restart the browser.
