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Welcome to our MyStarting123 Virus removal guide. The following instructions will aid you in removing the unwanted software from your PC.
Browser hijackers are notorious for their ability to completely ruin one’s internet browsing experience. The reason why they’re called is because they literally ‘hijack’ your browser, be it Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera or another one, by implementing their own settings, which on top of everything the user cannot do anything about, so long as the annoying program remains on their machine. These new settings tend to revolve around the homepage and default search engine of the browser in questions. Furthermore, they also tend to start generating numerous online ads within the browser and even cause frequent redirections to numerous sponsored pages. Today we’ll be looking at a specific representative of this software category, in fact, one of the latest to be released and it’s better known as MyStarting123 Virus. MyStarting123 Virus for the most part exhibits all the most common traits of a browser hijacker and unless you remove it from your PC, it will continue diminishing the quality of your browsing experience. If that’s why you’ve landed on this page, then below is a removal guide, which will help you do just that. But do spend another minute to finish reading this article first, as it has useful information regarding this program and others like it.
What is MyStarting123 Virus’s purpose and how did it end up on your machine?
Programs like the one you currently have to deal with are basically means of advertising and promoting certain products and services. As such, they are strictly marketing-driven and the majority of such programs operate in accordance with the popular remuneration scheme Pay Per Click. Thanks to this system, browser hijacker developers can profit directly from you and other users clicking on the paid ads that their hijackers generate within your browser. Based on this, programs like MyStarting123 Virus are often capable of rather ruthless and controversial tactics – all in the name of achieving larger gain.
We are specifically referring to the very widespread practice of data-gathering that these pieces of software tend to conduct in regards of the users’ browsing patterns. For example, they can easily snoop around and monitor the websites you visit, the kind of content you like and share on different social media platforms. Your online search requests are also often a subject of interest for browser hijackers, because based on all this information they can determine the type of products and services you may find appealing. So, once they’ve gathered a substantial enough amount of data regarding your preferences and current interests, the browser hijacker can then start to tailor the flow of ads to you personally and start displaying only the ads that you are more likely to click on. This is largely part of the reason why security experts often classify this software category as potentially unwanted, seeing as this activity is clearly a violation of the users’ privacy.
But more importantly, you may be wondering how exactly it managed to get into your system. If you do know how it happened – good for you, because in most cases, people usually don’t have a clue and the hijacker comes as a complete surprise. Well, you could have landed it from a spam email that was promoting certain optimization software or similar. But the most common sources of browser hijackers and other such software are program bundles. The tricky thing about them is that usually they are fully legal things, but unless you know about them and know where to look for them, they may slide into your system without you realizing it. Bundles basically represent a certain program, the installation manager of which has other programs attached to it. This is usually not advertised and unless you perform the installation process of the said program in a certain way, you are likely to install all the added content along with the original (main) program.
In order to prevent this from happening in the future, you will from now on need to opt for the custom or advanced settings of the installer. This will make for a more detailed process, which will give you more information and more control over the process of installing the new program into your system. And by that we mean that it will also allow you to see what added content there is. What’s more, you will also be able to deselect anything that seems unwanted from the listed of extra programs and then simply continue with the installation process, knowing that you won’t be surprised by ads in your browser and a new homepage or added toolbar.
SUMMARY:
| Name | MyStarting123 |
| Type | Browser Hijacker |
| Danger Level | Medium (nowhere near threats like Ransomware, but still a security risk) |
| Symptoms | The changed homepage and new default search engine in your browser are usually the primary symptoms of an infection. |
| Distribution Method | Spam emails, fake alerts and system notificatons, program bundles. |
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Welcome to our MyStarting123 Virus removal guide. The following instructions will aid you in removing the unwanted software from your PC.
MyStarting123 Virus Removal
I – Safe mode and revealing hidden files
II – Uninstallation
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- Use the Winkey+R keyboard combination, write Control Panel in the search field and hit enter.
- Go to Uninstall a program under Programs.
- Seek the unwanted software, select it and then click on Uninstall
If you are unable to spot MyStarting123 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.
III – Cleaning all your browsers
- Go to your browser’s icon, right-click on it and select Properties.
- Go to the Shortcut tab and in the Target make sure to delete anything written after “.exe”.
- Now, open your browser and follow the instructions below depending on whether you are using Chrome, Mozilla or IE.
- Chrome users:
- Go to your browser’s main menu located in the top-right corner of the screen and select Settings.
- Scroll down, click on Show Advanced Settings and then select Clear browsing data. Just to be sure, tick everything and clear the data.
- 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:
- Similarly to Chrome, go to the main menu and select Add-ons and then Extensions.
- Remove any suspicious browser extensions that you may have even if they do not have the name MyStarting123 Virus on them.
- IE users:
- Go to Tools and select Manage add-ons.
- 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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- Go to your start menu, type Task Manager in the search field and from the results open View running processes with Task Manager.
- Thoroughly look through all processes. The name MyStarting123 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.
- If you spot the process ran by MyStarting123 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
- In the start menu search box write View Network Connections and open the first result.
- Right-click on the network connection you are using and go to Properties.
- Select Internet Protocol Version (TCP/IPv4) and click on Properties.
- If Obtain DNS server addresses automatically is not checked, check it.
- Go to Advanced and select the DNS If there is anything in the DNS server addresses field, remove it and click OK.
- Click OK on the rest of the opened windows.