Picture this: Open your web browser and type in a search. You think you are searching on Google, but in actuality your browser settings were changed and now you are searching on some other search engine that you don't recognize. Even worse, now banner ads are appearing on your browser in a weird place and pop-ups come all the time. You are a victim of browser settings hijacking.
All it takes is visiting the wrong website, or downloading a program that you thought was safe but included some bad stuff. If your kids play games like Minecraft where they are always trying to add different mods to the game, they can be tricked very easily into downloading the wrong file which can often lead to this kind of thing. Most of the virus scanning programs will not even detect this type of hack. The company at the heart of it all is called Babylon.
If you see Babylon Search, Qv06.com or Delta-Search you are likely infected with this type of malware. It can be difficult to remove because there's no automatic way to do it. Here's some pro-tips:
1. Try to uninstall the offending toolbars via the windows control panel
2. Remove the browser extensions from your browser. Each browser has slightly different ways to do it.
3. In the browser settings, remove any unknown search engine under "manage search engines". Set your default to one you know such as google, yahoo or bing.
4. Search your hard drive under %appdata% and see if there's a folder with "Babylon" in the title. It may be difficult to delete so you may have to try rebooting in safe mode (hit f8 during startup) to delete it.
5. Use msconfig to review your startup procedure. Uncheck any unnecessary processes.
6. *be careful with this step*. Use regedit to search for any string in your registry containing the term "Babylon" and delete the strings.
Following these six steps should eliminate the problem, but if you need some help we are just a phone call away.
Enjoy your summer!
