Thesmartsearch.net Redirect Removal Guide

Remove THESMARTSEARCH.NET Redirect Virus (Useful Removal Guide) 

My homepage has been changed into THESMARTSEARCH.NET and I cannot turn it back into Google. It prevents me to change the current homepage to the previous safe one and undesirable pops- up keep bombarding the screen seeming to notify me that my computer performance needs to tune up by the help of some drive-by downloads. This really annoys me. I use Internet Explorer and run Windows XP operating system. How can I resolve this problem? Any suggestion will be appreciated. 

Description of THESMARTSEARCH.NET 

THESMARTSEARCH.NET is a website with invisible infection and backdoor programs, which can hijack and attack computer systems with adware or Trojan virus. The web page seems to feature search service and it has a convincing appearance because of the icons of Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter on it. Hence, don’ believe in it for it is exploited by cyber hackers to generate traffic and promote specific products which may severely decrease the system performance. Different ads are displayed under the search box to make it attractive. The sly program will display predetermined virus number and scare users to instantly fix the problems. Once infested by THESMARTSEARCH.NET, the process of reaching to the results you need is blocked by an unexpectedly appeared web page. The malicious website provides links related to misleading advertisements on your PC screen, asking you to download PDF files, install unwanted adds-on and purchase some PC tune-up products. You should not rashly click on that advertisements, for any click on them could lead to invasion of other malware like Trojan, spyware and adware.

Even though you purchase its full version to help fix threats, it turns out that nothing works out. More seriously, it slows down the computer performance and attach undesirable plug-in, add-on, toolbar onto the browser without asking user’s permission firstly. You may find the network speed become very slow, because the redirect virus will use your network to upload something. What’s more, this hijacker corrupts DNS setting and reinstallation of the browser cannot get rid of the virus and make the browser run properly. However, don’t believe the fraud it set up, try to remove the program and don’t get in touch with this evil website hijacker any more.

To protect your computer system and your privacy, you should remove THESMARTSEARCH.NET redirect with no hesitation. Use a specialized tool to deal with the browser hijacker if you are not sure about the manual removal.

Troubles Caused by the Browser Hijacker

1. THESMARTSEARCH.NET redirect can not only get on browsers without permissions, but reset default structures of affected browsers without letting you change them back.

2. There are lots of advertisements popping up on the browsers, which badly affects your surfing experience.

3. Continuous pops- up and sponsor links bombarding the screen to lure you into dropping malware into the computer.

4. The performance of the infested browser may reduce greatly for the browser hijacker utilizes it to perform insecure tasks.

5. It complicates usual surfing experience, adds unneeded features to browser, and serves unwanted website instead of the required ones.

Guide to Manually Remove the Redirect Virus

Step 1: Set the default homepage back

For Internet Explorer:
Click on Browser Tools
Select Manage Add-ons on the tools window
Click Search Provider
Here you can see many kinds of search engine option as Bing and Google, select your favorite one to be a default homepage.
Choose Search Results and click on Remove icon to eliminate it
Click Tools, select Internet Options and then the General tab. Here you can option a website you like and save it.
c. Select ‘Search Results’ and click ‘Remove’ to remove it;

For Google Chrome:
Open Customize and control
Click on Settings
Select on Basic Options icon
Here you can reset your homepage (e.g.Google.com）
Once you choose a default homepage, click on Manage Search Engines and then click Google to be your default search engine.
Remove it from the browser by clicking Search Result and then the X’ mark

For Mozilla Firefox:
Click Manage Search Engine
Select Search Results and then click Remove option, click OK
Open Tools, under the General tab, set Google.com as default homepage

Step 2: Locate related files of THESMARTSEARCH.NET and remove them from the computer
%AllUsersProfile%
%AllUsersProfile%\Programs\{random letters}\
%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\~r
%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\~dll

Step 3: Remove cookies on all browsers
Internet Explorer:
Click options on the browser and then choose Internet Options
Open General tab, click Delete Browsing History to remove all related cookies
Select cookies and click Delete

Firefox:
Click option
Select Privacy and then click on Remove Individual Cookies icon
Delete relevant cookies list on the box

Google Chrome:
Click option
Open Under the Bonnet tab
Select Privacy and then click Clear browsing data
Delete all cookies

Step 4: Remove malicious registry entries
Open Registry Editor on the start menu
Type in Regedit and click OK
Remove all the following registry entries
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings “CertificateRevocation” = ‘1’
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Attachments “SaveZoneInformation” = ‘0’

Since the manual removal is much more complicated than automatic way such as using an automatic removal tool, inexperienced users are not suggested to use. Frankly speaking, the manual removal way is complicated and requires you to have enough computer knowledge and skills. Luckily here we organize the manual method into 4 steps, by following them manual method will become much easier (The entries and files maybe different according to different operating system):

Conclusion

THESMARTSEARCH.NET is a stubborn hijacker threat that causes users’ headache. Once it invades the computer, it is able to add unnecessary add-ons, plug-ins and toolbars and inject scripts to the browsers and make the web browsers cannot function normally. It can be loaded automatically every time you start the web browser, which annoys you a lot. It is difficult to get rid of the page, even if you reinstall the browser or reset the browser setting. The web browser can spy on your online activities so you will get many pop-up advertisements related to what you have searched for before. To get rid of such annoyance, you can follow the guide provided above or simply use a powerful malware removal tool.

Note: It requires sufficient computer skills to perform the manual removal of this redirect virus. If you still don’t clearly know how to manually remove the threat after reading the guide above, please download and use an automatic removal tool instead.