Browser being re-directed

Hi - My browsers are being re-directed when I click on links on Google for example. I can't seem to find any new "unwanted" programs in my startup or program list pages. My scans from Anti-virus & ad-aware show nothing. This has caused some Windows error messages - like services stopped & I can't do windows updates - error 80072EFE shows up when I try. I'm getting to the point it may be faster to reformat - unless there is maybe 1 or 2 more things I should try. Hope you can help! Thank you

 

Check both your hosts file entries (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc) and your DNS IPs, either in your router or network properties. Make sure that either no IPs are set (they are dynamically attributed by your ISP) or that the DNS IPs belong to your ISP.

See what kind of entries have you got in your hosts file, specially entries with IP addresses like 012.345.678.901 (This IP was made up by me as an example.).

If you're in doubt, you can just edit the hosts file with Notepad, and delete everything, and only leave these two entries:

::1 localhost
127.0.0.1 localhost

 

you can try a scan with Hitman pro, dr.web cureit and MBAM. Run gmer as well. May be a rootkit I guess.

 

TDSSKiller is another tool worth a run if a suspected rootkit may be around.

 

if you are stuck, get more help from one of the dedicated sites listed
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1533481&postcount=3