firefox tab gone, have mysearchdial. no mysearchdial program in installed programs, can't uninstall. no way to manage add-ons w/out orange firefox tab
can't find a way to get rid of mysearchdial. no orange firefox tab in browser so can't get to manage add ons and no mysearchdial program in installed programs in control panel so can't uninstall there.
tried changing homepage but no matter what I do, mysearch dial stays there. went to mysearchdial web page, followed their instructions, no use. Tried running malwarebytes anti-malware and it did not see anything. my browser opens really slow. Microsoft security essentials isn't helping either. Tried booting from start up repair disk, didn't find any problem. searching on my computer for mysearchdial or anything unfamiliar doesn't show anything. ran Tune-up utilities on registry, didn't find anything.
What should I try next? Thank you very much.
Chosen solution
Hello,
The easiest way is probably to do a Firefox Reset. This will return Firefox to its default settings. Your personal data (bookmarks, history etc) will be saved but you will need to reinstall all your addons.
Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings
If you can't get into the Orange Firefox menu to do the reset then you can close Firefox and then hold down the Shift key as you open it. This will bring up a menu that gives you the option to reset Firefox.
The problem with this is that (as you have identified) there is a chance that Firefox will get hijacked again if you don't manage to remove the malware from your computer.
You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
- Microsoft Safety Scanner
- MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
- TDSSKiller - AntiRootkit Utility
- Hitman Pro
- ESET Online Scanner
I also suggest looking at the list of startup programs and disabling any that you do not want or don't recognise. Whatever is causing the mysearchdial hijack is likely to be listed in the startup list because it wants to run as soon as the computer boots.
I hope this helps. Let me know if not.
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (6)
Chosen Solution
Hello,
The easiest way is probably to do a Firefox Reset. This will return Firefox to its default settings. Your personal data (bookmarks, history etc) will be saved but you will need to reinstall all your addons.
Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings
If you can't get into the Orange Firefox menu to do the reset then you can close Firefox and then hold down the Shift key as you open it. This will bring up a menu that gives you the option to reset Firefox.
The problem with this is that (as you have identified) there is a chance that Firefox will get hijacked again if you don't manage to remove the malware from your computer.
You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
- Microsoft Safety Scanner
- MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
- TDSSKiller - AntiRootkit Utility
- Hitman Pro
- ESET Online Scanner
I also suggest looking at the list of startup programs and disabling any that you do not want or don't recognise. Whatever is causing the mysearchdial hijack is likely to be listed in the startup list because it wants to run as soon as the computer boots.
I hope this helps. Let me know if not.
So how do we get it off our computers?
You need to uninstall whatever software caused the hijack.
You can either attempt to identify it manually by checking your list of installed programs and the list of startup programs or you can use the anti-virus / anti-malware programs I suggested above to identify and remove the software.
Your home page is set to start.mysearchdial.com
- browser.startup.homepage: http://start.mysearchdial.com/?f=1&a=irmsd0101&
Note that your System Details List shows that you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize some prefs each time you start Firefox.
The user.js file is only present if you or other software has created it, so normally it wouldn't be there. you can check its content with a plain text editor if you didn't create this file yourself.
The user.js file is read each time you start Firefox and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so preferences set via user.js can only be changed temporarily for the current session.
Delete a possible user.js file and numbered prefs-##.js files and rename (or delete) the prefs.js file to reset all prefs to the default value including prefs set via user.js
See also:
Hobbit,
It seems you have a normal Menu Bar instead of the orange Firefox tab. To find Add-Ons from the Menu Bar just click Tools and look in the drop-down list.
To regain the orange Firefox tab right-click in an empty space to right of Menu Bar and uncheck the Menu Bar option.
Modified by Tony98
hi bud1, to make sure you don't have any adwares, PUP, LPIs or hijackers, i advice you to download adwcleaner. if you don't already know it, it will detect all these kinds of programs.
i hope i've been helpful.
romsdu81