How to Get Rid of Smartnewtab.com Redirect Virus?

Smartnewtab.com was invented to attack internet browsers. If users’ computers get infected by this redirect virus, their browser settings will be changed without any consent, which is absolutely not a good thing. It is able to sneak into the affected computer via exploiting system security holes, p2p, spam emails, attachments,online chats and other unprotected networks. When users start to run their infected browsers or do a search, the threat may force them to visit certain specified websites and use it as their search engine. It may perform a lot of spiteful actions in the background for commercial purposes.

Under normal circumstance, Smartnewtab.com browser hijack will redirect PC users to visit advertising sites while going online, and then PC users will see many unsafe links and advertisement pages. The hijacker can fool you and take advantage of your personal information to make profits. As most of the ads webpages offered by the redirect virus are always so tempting for generic PC users, they may click the unsafe links, and the victims would fall for the trap set up by cyber criminals. The so-call preferential information are not reliable, you should not click those ads to avoid getting defrauded.

It is not safe to let this redirect virus remain inside the infected computer for a long time. Most users consider the hijacker is just a harmless domain, so they take it for granted that as long as they don’t click on those ads links or poop-ups of Smartnewtab.com they won’t meet any trouble. But the truth is precisely the opposite. Since the redirect virus can makes some changes in the system, various problems would occur on the computer. It makes unauthorized modifications that makes whole security system vulnerable to unwanted Waldemar and virus. If that happens, the computer system will face lots of problems such as PC performance degradation. If users don’t take effective measures to get rid of the redirect virus from PC, their PCs may be further damaged and compromised. Thus, it is very necessary for PC users to wipe out this Smartnewtab.com redirect virus immediately and completely.

Remove Smartnewtab.com Browser Threat Step By Step

Step one: set the default homepage back
For Internet Explorer:
1. Click on Browser Tools
2. Select Manage Add-Ons on the tools window
3. Click Search Provider
4. Here you can see many kinds of search engine option as Bing and Google, select your favorite one to be a default homepage.
5. Choose Search Results and click on Remove icon to eliminate it
6. Click Tools, select Internet Options and then the General tab. Here you can option a website you like and save it.
c. Select the unwanted address and click ‘Remove’ to remove it;
For Google Chrome:
1. Open Customize and control
2. Click on Settings
3. Select on Basic Options icon
4. Here you can reset your homepage (e.g.Google.com）
5. Once you choose a default homepage, click on Manage Search Engines and then click Google to be your default search engine.
6. Remove it from the browser by clicking Smartnewtab.com and then the X’ mark
For Mozilla Firefox:
1. Click Manage Search Engine
2. Select Search Results and then click Remove option, click OK
3. Open Tools, under the General tab, set Google.com as default homepage
Step two: locate related files of the redirect virus and remove them from the computer
%AllUsersProfile%
%AllUsersProfile%\Programs\{random letters}\
%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\~r
%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\~dll
Step three: Remove Cookies on all Browsers
Internet Explorer:
a. Click options on the browser and then choose Internet Options
b. Open General tab, click Delete Browsing History to remove all related cookies
c. Select cookies and click Delete
Firefox:
a. Click option
b. Select Privacy and then click on Remove Individual Cookies icon
c. Delete relevant cookies list on the box
Google Chrome:
a. Click option
b. Open Under the Bonnet tab
c. Select Privacy and then click Clear browsing data
d. Delete all cookies
Step four: Remove Malicious Registry
a. Open Registry Editor on the start menu
b. Type in Regedit and click OK
c. Remove all the following registry entries
HKEY
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings “CertificateRevocation” = ‘1’
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Attachments “SaveZoneInformation” = ‘0’

Conclusion

Smartnewtab.com redirect virus is very stubborn that cannot be detected by all computer users. Inexperienced computer users are usually tricked by this malware for they seldom pay attention to malware prevention problems. Evil cyber criminals make use of this browser hijacker to affect users’ PCs and make money with pay-per-link techniques. Thus, users should pay more attention to their computer performance and run their advanced antivirus programs to scan the PCs once some weird symptoms show up in order to prevent more damages caused by hidden viruses. Usually, the browser redirect virus comes bundled with third-party applications, especially freeware and shareware, and gets installed in the target machines when users unwittingly obtain them from unsecure sources on the Internet. Besides, users should regularly update their operating systems and antivirus programs, so as to put the system security at a higher level. If you have difficulty in manually removing the redirect virus, then you can try using an advanced malware removal tool to perform an automatic removal of this threat.