Chromestart.info “Virus” Removal (Chrome/FF/IE)

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Welcome to our Chromestart.info “Virus” removal guide. The following instructions will aid you in removing the unwanted software from your PC.

Browser hijackers are a software family, whose members could infect all your browser apps, including the most popular ones like Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and/ or Opera. After that, such a program may authorize some annoying changes – your default homepage and search engine is usually substituted with new ones; plenty of ads [pop-ups/ banners/ boxes] might begin to cover your browsers’ tabs and windows. What’s even more disturbing, your browser apps could start redirecting you to websites you never intended to open. Chromestart.info “Virus” – the specific program, discussed in the paragraphs below, is an exemplary member of this exact software category.

The most usual way to catch a Chromestart.info “Virus”-invoked infection

To be entirely clear, nearly any kind of web content may be spreading browser hijackers and may infect you with one. The potential sources may be greatly varying, including contaminated web pages, infected torrents, drive-by downloads, etc. Although the number of possible carriers of hijackers could be really big, there is one of them, which can be blamed for the majority of the recorded infections. If you are wondering which this particular source is, it’s better known under the name “program bundle”. The so called bundles in fact represent a variety of different apps, games and programs, transported together for free across the Internet. Actually, some of these bundles may be incredibly appealing, because they may contain some new or usually paid program versions; fascinating games, etc. Normally, any bundle also contains a version of an ad-generating program – either Adware or a hijacker.  Also, it is essential that you remember that no bundle could infect your system alone – they have no such features. Proceed with the next paragraph to see how the infection could take place and how to avoid it.

How the contamination usually happens

An infection may only occur if the following circumstances are present: 

• Only on the condition that you install a given bundle via the ‘wrong’ installation feature. All the available options, which do not include all the necessary info about the content of a given bundle, are the ones you are supposed to avoid. Namely they are: the Quick or the Automatic, the Default or the Easy ones.
• To ensure a healthy and stable system, it is vital that you learn to choose the Advanced or the Custom installer features (as they provide a customized installation process, in which you really select (or deselect) from the available programs or features of a bundle (or any program)).

Is there anything, which could relate browser hijackers to any malicious program?

To your probable surprise, no program from this group has ever been identified as really dangerous, just most of the known hijackers are classified as potentially unwanted programs. The programs, which are really malicious, possess some particularly hazardous effects and may really damage your computer. They may involve crashing the entire system; formatting, corrupting, or even stealing data, folders, programs or private account details. Chromestart.info “Virus” is NOT capable of EVER performing anything like the aforementioned horrors. Generally speaking, all hijackers are marketing-oriented and their mere purpose is to legally promote websites, homepages (search engines) and/or different services and/or products.

However, why are Chromestart.info “Virus” and its siblings ‘potentially unwanted’?

As you might expect, browser hijackers are not 100% harmless and innocent. In fact, some of them could at times possess certain shady and suspicious features, which could result in a great amount of annoyance. For instance, the modification of your default search engine and homepage may be seriously disturbing you, although such slight modifications may only have advertising purposes. Moreover, the potential redirecting to web pages you haven’t commanded the browser app to load could really be even more irritating. Another quite intrusive feature is that nearly all ad-broadcasting programs might exploit your browser history records for their advertising campaigns. In fact, the entire stream of ads and the whole process of redirecting could be adjusted to your supposed tastes and preferences – or to your most recent search requests. Actually, this characteristic is the main reason why hijackers could have a rather shady reputation, however, the history records data is the only data, which such a program could ever access.

Successfully removing Chromestart.info “Virus”:

When it comes to removing this browser hijacker, maybe you will consider it wise to stick to the tips inside the Removal Guide below on this page.

Chromestart.info “Virus” Removal

I – Uninstallation

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1. Use the Winkey+R keyboard combination, write Control Panel in the search field and hit enter.
   
2. Go to Uninstall a program under Programs.
   
3. Seek the unwanted software, select it and then click on Uninstall
   1. If you are unable to spot Chromestart.info “Virus”, search for any unrecognized programs that you do not remember installing on your PC – the unwanted software might disguise itself by going under a different name.

II – Safe mode and revealing hidden files

1. Boot your PC into Safe Mode /link/
2. Reveal hidden files and folders /link/

III – Cleaning all your browsers

1. Go to your browser’s icon, right-click on it and select Properties.
   
2. Go to the Shortcut tab and in the Target make sure to delete anything written after “.exe”.
   
3. Now, open your browser and follow the instructions below depending on whether you are using Chrome, Mozilla or IE.

• Chrome users:

1. Go to your browser’s main menu located in the top-right corner of the screen and select Settings.
   
2. Scroll down, click on Show Advanced Settings and then select Clear browsing data. Just to be sure, tick everything and clear the data.
   
3. Now, in the left pane, go to Extensions and look through all extensions that are integrated within your browser. If you notice any suspicious add-on, disable it and then remove it.
   

• Firefox users:

1. Similarly to Chrome, go to the main menu and select Add-ons and then Extensions.
2. Remove any suspicious browser extensions that you may have even if they do not have the name Chromestart.info “Virus” on them.

• IE users:

1. Go to Tools and select Manage add-ons.
   
2. Click on all add-on types from the left pane and check if there is anything suspicious in the right panel. In case you find anything shade, make sure to remove it.

IV – Removing Shady processes

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1. Go to your start menu, type Task Manager in the search field and from the results open View running processes with Task Manager.
   
2. Thoroughly look through all processes. The name Chromestart.info “Virus” might not be there, but if you notice any shady looking process that consumes high amounts of memory it might be ran by the unwanted program.
3. If you spot the process ran by Chromestart.info “Virus”, right-click on it, open its file location and delete everything in there. Then go back to the Task Manager and end the process.
   

V – DNS check

1. In the start menu search box write View Network Connections and open the first result.
   
2. Right-click on the network connection you are using and go to Properties.
   
3. Select Internet Protocol Version (TCP/IPv4) and click on Properties.
   
4. If Obtain DNS server addresses automatically is not checked, check it.
   
5. Go to Advanced and select the DNS If there is anything in the DNS server addresses field, remove it and click OK.
   
6. Click OK on the rest of the opened windows.