Friday, December 19, 2014

How to Eliminate Astrology.com Redirect Virus

Astrology.com Redirect Virus Removal Guide

Astrology.com website interrupts Internet users’ online activities, with its advanced hack techniques. The virus appears to be a legitimate website provided with a search engine for users. As a matter of fact, it is an invasive browser hijacker redirect virus that used by cyber hackers to boost web traffic. As similar as other known redirect virus like Search.qone8.com browser hijacker (Read more), Astrology.com virus come inside compromised computer if users click on the links of the trustless search results which may include malware of potential threat. Downloading unknown freeware or shareware online may lead to the infection of Astrology.com virus. During installation, the browser hijacker will modify the browser settings and DNS settings on the targeted computer, changing the default homepage to its site forcibly.

It seems that the website Astrology.com is not harmful to users’ computers. However, users may find it annoying, since it keeps popping up automatically when users launch their browsers or open a new tab. The virus can change search results to random ones which are commercial advertisements or pornographic contents. Moreover, it is usually bundled with many other computer threats including Trojan virus, keyloggers, rogue and ransomware. To escape the detection of security software, it will frequently change its name and position and even disable your executable programs. If the threat cannot be removed promptly, it may add some unwanted extensions to the browsers to trace users’ browsing histories and record cookies. Namely, this redirect virus could help the cyber hackers to collect users’ personal data. This may comprise user documents, login names and passwords, valuable multimedia objects or any other important files online. To avoid worse result and a loss of value, you need to work out a solution to erase the browser hijack virus completely. Sometimes, using a removal tools installed on the computer is not workable because they can not find out anything unsafe on the machine. Therefore, it is highly recommended to remove get rid of Astrology.com redirect virus in almighty manual removal.


Reasons to Remove Astrology.com

1. Users’ browser settings, such as default homepage and search engine, will be changed by the browser hijacker and users’ search results may be redirected to random or weird websites. 2.Astrology.com can introduce endless additional items, including third party programs, browser doo-on, extensions, plugins and toobars without asking for any permission from users. It can also bundle with third party freeware, shareware or torrents so that to make worse damage on affected computer. 3. It can degrade the performance of system significantly by taking up a big part of system resource and CPU usage. The CPU usage usually reaches to 100%. 4. It is able to block security protection like Firewall and antivirus programs to avoid the auto removal from them. Some applications or operating system may breakdown suddenly. 5. It may steal your important privacy information by opening a backdoor for remote hackers and allowing them to access affected computer freely.

How to Remove Astrology.com Completely

Even if you have installed the most advanced antivirus software on the PC, Astrology.com can still arrive on your computer without your permission. It puts many attractive promoting ads and coupons under the search box to make it look real. Then you are getting confused. Well, this is because the virus is equipped with advanced techniques. It takes time for Antivirus to keep its definition up to date to defeat the virus. But it is a tricky and annoying browser hijacker so that you hardly remove it completely from your PC. In this case, you may think about the mighty manual removal so that to erase all its relevant processes, DLL files and registry files for good.

Note: Manual removal needs expert’s experience. One mistake may cause system crash. If you are not skilled at computer, you are strongly recommended to remove Astrology.com by using a professional malware removal tool.


Astrology.com Manual Removal Guides:
Step 1: Stop the processes of the Trojan in Task Manager.

1)Open Windows Task Manager by pressing keys Ctrl+Shift+ESC or Ctrl+Alt+Del. together.

2)Search for its running malicious processes of the Trojan, and then stop them all by clicking on “End Process” button. (The virus process can be random)

Step 2: Delete all the files associated with the Trojan.

%AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates\random.exe
%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\random
%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\~random
%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\.dll HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Random “.exe”

Step 3: Get rid of all the registry entries related to the Trojan.

1)Press Window + R keys together. When Run pops up, type regedit into the box and click OK to launch Registry Editor.

Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER directories, find out and get rid of all the registry entries related to the Trojan immediately.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\random
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer\run\random
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunRegedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\[RANDOM CHARACTERS].exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Random
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings “CertificateRevocation” =Random
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer\run\Random.exe

Note: Please back up your computer before any file changes in case that you can restore your information and data if you make any mistake during the process.

Step 4: Restart the computer to normal mode after these steps are done.

Conclusion:

Astrology.com is a browser extension, plug-in or add-on that is related to browser hijacker. It can show up annoying ads pop-ups when you surf online and redirect you to the website it is meant to promote. As a typical browser hijack virus, the Astrology.com virus has the ability to replace default homepage as well as start-up page of browser to other unsafe pages. You may often be redirected to Astrology.com or other malicious websites when you want to open a new tab or web page. Therefore, it is very urgent to remove Astrology.com completely in the sake of avoiding more severe losses. Since the antivirus cannot remove the threat efficiently, you can try the mighty manual removal to get rid of the virus entirely.

But please note that the manual removal is a task of high complexity and risk. If you have no experience to handle program files, processes, .dll files and registry entries, it may lead to mistakes damaging your system. Hence, you must use extra caution during the manual removal process. If you want to avoid making any critical mistakes during the process, please try the automatic removal tool-SpyHunter to help you out of trouble.

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