Remove Search.whitesmoke.com Redirect Virus

I need help to fix a problem on my Internet browser. Each time I launch the program, I often get this Search.whitesmoke.com site as the welcome page instead of my favorite page. I tried to reset it several times but it didn’t work. Each time I re-run the browser, this site will just come back up. It’s even blocking me from accessing other web sites. I normally don’t search via unfamiliar search tools. How do I get rid of this Whitesmoke popup?

Search.whitesmoke.com Redirect Virus – How to Remove

Search.whitesmoke.com (also known as the Whitesmoke Web Search) may look like a regular search engine to many computer users. But it’s in fact belonging to a browser hijacker which isn’t a trusted search tool for you to keep or use for online activities. Victims of this browser hijacker normally don’t have any clue of how they get this unwanted popup. This Whitesmoke Web Search virus just suddenly shows up on their browsers and automatically modifies the default settings of these programs to stop users from getting online appropriately. Although it’s not detected by Anti-virus software as an infection, this Search.whitesmoke.com redirect is as dangerous as other computer threats. When having this unwanted popup on browsers, one should be able to get rid of Whitesmoke Web Search as soon as possible.

While common search engines help provide information of users’ queries instantly, this unfriendly Whitesmoke Web Search hijacker helps prompt other cyber threats to further compromise the affected systems as well as to benefit unauthorized online third parties. It looks like a regular search tool coming from http://search.whitesmoke.com/. But victims of this browser hijacker will soon realize that they cannot surf the Internet properly as they could because of this unwanted popup. Each time you attempt to launch the affected browser(s) and surf online, you will come straight forward to this Whitesmoke thing. It keeps redirecting you back or forward to blank tabs or unwanted pages. You can also expect lots of constant pop-up ads and suspicious links. It even displays ads right below the Whitesmoke Web Search tool. It’s believed that many of the results or ads provided by this browser hijacker are sponsored by cyber criminals and contain other potential cyber threats waiting to sneak into systems to cause further troubles. Computer users could be put under different risks by this Search.whitesmoke.com redirect virus. To avoid these troubles from happening, a complete removal of this browser hijacker is needed to be done ASAP.

Manual removal instructions to get rid of this Whitesmoke Web Search virus are given below. Contact YooSecurity Online PC Experts for help if you are not a computer savvy:

Http://search.whitesmoke.com/ Redirect Screenshot

Browser Hijackers Are Spread Online

Victims of this browser hijacker usually don’t know when and how they get it. That’s because the Search.whitesmoke.com redirect virus doesn’t need permissions from PC users to be installed. It’s released by hackers on the Internet and spread in many ways. Bundling is the most common way for this hijacker to spread. To be more specific, it can be bundled with online freeware, spam ware and other malicious resources including ads, misleading information and spam email attachments. Once users are tricked by any of these resources online, they could have the chances to be attacked by this Search.whitesmoke.com. As soon as this browser hijacker is installed together with these malicious files or programs, it will be able to corrupt Internet browsers on the computers and cause constant troubles to annoy the users later on.

Browser Hijackers Are Potentially Risky

This hacked Whitesmoke Web Search tool can help cyber criminals scam its victims by stealing their confidential information. While regular search engines use cookies to help improve users’ online sessions, Search.whitesmoke.com redirect uses tracking cookies to record and collect users’ private information and other online data to help third-parties benefit. Other than that, this browser hijacker can also bring up these following consequences to help it achieve more cyber scam activities:

– It keeps displaying constant ads and misleading information to deceive its victims and interrupt their online sessions;
– It helps other malware or spyware sneak into the compromised systems to cause further troubles;
– It generally slows down the performance of the affected browsers as well as the whole systems.

Step-by-step Manual Removal Instructions

To manually remove this Search.whitesmoke.com redirect virus out of the PCs, expertise will be required during the process as the associating files or registries you are about to deal with can be named differently on different computers:

Step A: Open Windows Task Manager by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del keys at the same time; go to Processes tab on top and scroll down the list to ‘End Process’. Names of the processes may not show exactly the same on each PC:

Step B: Open Control Panel and go to Uninstall a program session; scroll down the list to uninstall this unwanted extensions related to Search.whitesmoke.com redirect virus:

Step C: Open Control Panel from Start menu and search for Folder Options. Go to Folder Options window, under View tab, tick Show hidden files and folders and non-tick Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) and then click OK:

Step D: Press Windows+R keys together to pull up Run box and type in regedit to open Registry Editor. Delete registry values of Whitesmoke Web Search hijacker.

Step E: Change home pages back from Search.whitesmoke.com: (Mozilla Firefox)

Similar Video on Browser Hijacker Removal in Registry:

Conclusion

The Whitesmoke virus is what we call in general. This Search.whitesmoke.com redirect virus is believed to be a current variant of this Whitesmoke virus. By sneaking onto Internet browsers (Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox ect.) and automatically modifying their default structures, it can not only cause constant difficulties for users’ online sessions, but help third-parties with their cybercrime activities. Victims of this hijacker will encounter difficulties when trying to get online. They may also come across many problems when running on the compromised computers if this virus cannot be removed timely. And since Anti-virus programs may not help get rid of Search.whitesmoke.com virus, manual removal is a better solution. Remove this Whitesmoke virus and keep your PC from all the potential troubles.

Note: Have spent so much time on removal but failed? Contact YooSecurity Online Experts to get further help to complete a removal of this Whitesmoke virus safely: