Anyone know how to get rid of the qooqlle virus?
My laptop just got this virus that has hijacked my browsers (IE, Firefox AND Chrome) by basically resetting them without any addons and directing to this search engine called “qooqlle” (an obvious knock-off of Google). All my bookmarks are intact. I try to change my homepage, but everytime I restart my computer it changes it back to qooqlle.com.
You can search the interwebs and find many apparent solutions to it, but everything I’ve tried hasn’t worked. I do not want to pay for something that claims it will get rid of it. I’m sure there is something else that I can do.
Anybody have any experience with this? What is the best solution? What can I do in the future to protect my computer from viruses?
By the way, I have AVG Anti-Virus, Ad-aware, Spybot, and Malwarebytes all installed.
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I haven’t had that particular virus. I completely agree with you about paying for unknown virus removal software. I also object to being expected to pay a regular fee to be able to keep up to date with the latest virus definitions. However, the PC owner has little choice if they want to remain protected.
I did, however, find a solution to this as well as my many other PC gripes. I bought a Mac!
I am sorry, but there is no way I am clicking a link associated with a virus.
It’s a mean bugger piece of Malware.
What OS are you running?
@YoBob Just to say, it’s completely untrue that a PC user needs to pay a fee for antivirus. I think most, if not all of the best-rated anti-virus solutions are freeware.
And hmm, sounds like a major issue, but I haven’t heard of it before. Most answers I’m seeing are registry hacks, which usually are not a good idea unless you’re experienced. Other advice said to just keep trying other anti-virus systems, you can try that. There’s a few other good free ones that may be worth a shot.
As for future, AVG is a good one, and it sounds like you have everything you should. Sometimes things get through, most virus detection is inherently reactive. Heuristics are still not good enough to spot everything. You can try and get Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, too, it’s good for the really bad stuff. Don’t think it’ll hit this thing, though. Just for the future.
From what I have read, Kaspersky has a tool to detect and resolve it. I do not have the malware, but the tool is functional and legitimate. I ran it on my pc to ensure before adding a link to it here.
Let us know if it helps.
TDSS rootkit remover
@blueiiznh Oh yeah, should have mentioned that I am running Windows XP.
One solution is a clean install of windows (although with XP this is a bit of a pain as you’ll probably need to install drivers for everything – windows 7 is a much nicer to install).
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I am also having the same problem with my browsers, still haven’t found the solution yet, please help! I have AVG and everything too. On top of that, I cannot uninstall my IE and and reinstall with a different IE. No matter how many times I uninstall and reinstall my Chrome and Firefox, that qooqlle just comes back!!! Help, please….
It might just be a good time to upgrade to Windows 7. The install should resolve it.
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