Intrusive search engine.

[G-CPTN]

In a moment of weakness I downloaded Duck Duck Go (https://duckduckgo.com/).

At first DDG remained as an alternative, and at not time have I agreed to it being my default search-engine, yet it has infiltrated Firefox and established itself as such.

(Oh, how I hate software that does that!)

\\how do I restore my previous favourite (Google)?

Do I have to uninstall DDG - or is there a a menu setting that will rectify the situation?

[The Flying Pram]

I guess you installed it as an Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-for-firefox/

In which case click on "Tools" (at the top of your browser window), then "Add-ons" followed by "Extensions". Scroll down the list until you find it. Click on "Disable" or "Remove" (your choice) and restart Firefox.

If Google isn't restored as the default, click on the arrow on the left side of the search box and select "Manage Search Engines". Hopefully the rest should be self explanatory!

TFP

[Sunnyjohn]

Persist with DuckDuckGo - it's a good search engine. I have it as the home page on Chrome and Google as the home page on Safari.

[parabellum]

Watch out for another one called 'flipora' which rides on the back of an email that says someone, (by name), who is in your address book would like to contact you. If you follow all the buttons after the initial 'accept' you will have installed it and it wants to take over search engine and home page.

[dazdaz1]

Flying Pram, thanks for advice #2 nothing to do with OP but found my (your instructions) 'Avast' disabled I turned it back on.

Daz

[Feline]

Here's a couple more to be aware of: Delta Search (http://www.delta-search.com) (claims to use the combined power of Google, Bing and a couple of other search engines). It hijacks your browser and is a really persistent nasty little bugger - just refuses to go away. Furthermore, somehow it randomly eats cpu cycles so your system becomes unbearably slow (like you get allocated about one cpu cycle a minute). It downloaded with a battery power monitor I needed for a netbook (I must have failed to untick a browser search toolbar). I really thought the netbook had died and was about to bin it - then googled Delta search from another machine.
To get rid of it you have to use Remove Program (more than one program gets loaded into the registered program list) and then scan your registry to get rid of registry entries (I used CCcleaner to do that).
Another one from the same source but on a different netbook was search.conduit.com - this seemed much easier to get rid of (maybe because of my frustrating experience with Delta Search (http://WWW.delta-search.com).

Let's be careful out there!

[Nervous SLF]

I use Firefox and check the add ons now and then. In the last couple of weeks it keeps telling me that the Adobe Acrobat is outdated.
However I have downloaded the latest version from the link from Adobe 3 times, ran it and was told there is a further update which was
loaded automatically. It still says it's outdated 5 minutes ago.

[Feline]

Oh yes, forgot to mention that Delta Search does not show up on the list of Firefox Add-ons - so you can't disable or remove it from within Firefox. And I don't know how it was stealing cpu cycles because it didn't show up in Task Manager performance. A real sneaky piece of malware.

[Phalconphixer]

Delta Search... nasty little b*gger as has been said. I downloaded a PDF creator program and it rides on the back of that one too. No tick boxes to clear. No by your leave or kiss my ass, we will load this program as a part of the required download. I managed to get rid of it eventually but it's a little sh*t. And you don't know you've got it or are going to get it, until after the required download is complete... I use the latest version of FF and it loaded the FF version, the IE version and the Chrome version (even though I haven't got chrome installed) of the search engine, hijacking the normal start page for each...

[lasernigel]

I've got it as well. New laptop and decided to get Start* so at least I could have a start bar with Win 8. Ran CC cleaner and malawarebytes. Malaware found 18 registry entries, still got Delta everytime I open up my browser. Anyone got any other ideas please?

[Loose rivets]

Went to put Malaware bytes on this laptop and no matter where I go for it, I get some moronic looking pseudo-combatant smoking a cigar and wearing a tin hat. Not quite a professional looking site.

Surely, this can't be an approved download site for such a famous tool - can it?


Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - MajorGeeks (http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/malwarebytes_anti_malware.html)

[Terry Dactil]

I am another one who tried "Duck Duck Go" with Firefox.
Not impressed and removed it after less than a week.

[ExSp33db1rd]

It has been suggested that DuckDuckGo doesn't report your "interest" to commercial retailers - can't comment.

Certainly if you search for a product on Google, then one is inundated with adverts from retailers of that product. Google is a commercial entity, therefore it is in their interest to sell your identity to those who think they can sell you something. n'est ce pas ?

Only saying, can't comment, I haven't sufficient experience of DDG, but have no complaints so far.

[Bushfiva]

LR, the site for Malwarebytes is, unsurprisingly, Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware download (http://www.malwarebytes.org/). If you download the free version from there, it will select a download server for you, usually Softonic.

[OverRun]

My sympathies for those with infected computers. Unfortunately I know the feeling all too well.

I found this useful article on How to Know If Your Computer Is Infected which deals with finding ALL of the nasties. It is not a simple process but should allow you to finally clean out even the most stubborn infection.
How to Know If Your Computer Is Infected (http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-know-if-your-computer-infected.htm). I just used the root kit killer (because I know and trust Kaspersky) and was pleased there was nothing.

A great programme which I used a couple of weeks ago is Hitman Pro, written by some Dutch people. Despite its fearsome name, they claim it as a second opinion scanner, "designed to rescue your computer from malware (viruses, trojans, rootkits, etc.) that have infected your computer despite all the security measures you have taken (such as anti virus software, firewalls, etc.)". I am very pleased with it because it found a trojan that had got past all my defences and was uploading large amounts - probably a botnet. One warning though - after running Hitman Pro you must restart the computer so it can finish because it seems to lock off most ports and internet connections while it is running (I guess to protect itself) and my email and browser all stopped until the computer rebooted. Then everything was fine.
HitmanPro 3 - SurfRight (http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro/)

And finally, when I was looking for software to solve my problems, my Google search threw up a lot of sites which just didn't feel right - their address wasn't quite kosher or the wording on the page was a bit odd. I wonder if some of these sites that have software which promises to fix things are in fact sites containing malware. For that reason, I have deliberately given the 2 web addresses above because I have checked them out pretty closely and have used their software and both sites seem reasonable and safe.