I keep getting 'Wow" search engine and cannot delete it. Is this malware?
I downloaded an item from the web about a month ago (specifically, an owners manual), but I had my homepages on internet explorer and Firefox hi-jacked by some other homepage ('Wow'). I was able to get rid of the homepages but noticed that the 'Wow' search engine on Firefox would not disappear and could not be removed. I had my tech support (Windstream) run a scan and they were able to detect a couple of minor infections and get rid of them. However, 'Wow' has reappeared so am wondering if this is a particularly difficult embedded malware. Here is what I found on the web; http://malwarenuke.com/wow-com-virus-removal-guide/
Could I get rid of the malware by just removing Firefox and re-installing? Any suggestions?
All Replies (2)
You can use the SearchReset extension to reset some preferences to the default values.
Note that the SearchReset extension only runs once and then uninstalls automatically, so it won't show on the "Firefox > Add-ons" page (about:addons).
If you do not keep changes after a restart or otherwise have problems with preferences, see:
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender: Home Page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
Für alle, die im deutschsprachigen Raum ein Problem mit dem Entfernen von de.wow [dot] com haben, gibt es hier eine Step-by-Step Anleitung: http://www.browserdoktor.de/wow-com-entfernen/
Modified by browserdoktor