The Google redirect malware (Virus/Rootkit/Spyware) has been around for quite some time now. I have been brought a computer to clean with this malware on it countless times. I have sometimes been able to remove it and sometimes have not been able to. From what I can tell there are numerous different pieces of malware that have the symptom of redirecting your Google search results. At the very least there are several generations of the same piece of malware, and it seems to be getting harder and harder the cleanup.

Let me just say right away that most of the time when I am trying to clean up a PC with this malware, it is a paying customer and they are paying by the hour. So instead of paying me for hours and hours of time they generally want me to backup their data, and format the hard drive and reinstall Windows. This is a fail safe way to remove the malware, but comes with the aggravation of having to basically start with a brand new PC. Every little piece of software you had has to get get reinstalled, and every little thing you had customized has to get redone.

I generally try the same tools in the same order every time I try to remove the Google re-director malware. At some point in time each and every one of these tools has successfully removed the malware at least once. Because some of these tools are quite dangerous in the wrong hands I will only be listing them by name. I will not have links to download them, or tutorials on how to use them. If you go find them on your own and decide to give them a try just keep in mind that some of them will find valid files and try to remove them. They can mess up your PC worse than it already is. This being said if you go an try them on your own please be careful and if anything comes up that you aren’t 100% sure what to do or how to answer leave it alone.

I generally try the following tools in this order:

1. MalwareBytes Anti-Malware

2. Spybot Seach and Destroy

3. Microsoft Malicious software removal tool

4. TDSS Killer

5. R_Kill

6. RootRepeal

7. ComboFix

I make sure I have the newest version and the newest updates for each tool. If I run these and it doesn’t remove the malware, this is when I recommend to do a reload of the entire system.

This was only meant to be a helpful guide to give some people some things to try before they paid someone to fix it or, as some people do, gave up and go buy a new PC. Again, use caution when using any of these tools. Especially the last 4 on the list.