Hi I'm having a real problem with redirects in firefox, chrome and now explorer...
I'm using w10 and I think the problems started when I was looking for a PDF car manual and stupidly downloaded a file I thought to be the PDF but wasn't.
Anyhow It's a random issue, sometimes I'm redirected when a popup is activated other times when a tab for a link is created. I've noticed when I do a google search in the main window of the browser another search bar appears above the main window. Sometimes when I click to go to a page the newly loaded page stutters before loading and the links on that page no longer highlight on rollover properly, clicking a link brings up a warning from firefox saying the popup was blocked, in the options pulldown the address says the link goes to www.smartnewtab.com not the intended page. Denying access seems to reset the original page and then the page links highlight properly and clicking on the very same link takes me to the right page.
Bitdefender is always setup in the most aggressive mode, and when I realised I had a problem I also downloaded the free version of MalwareBytes. I have scanned my drive constantly for 2 days and nothing comes up on either software. I have deleted firefox and chrome reinstalled them turned off the plugins and extensions, checked in program uninstall for unknown programs and can’t see anything obvious. I’ve gone into safe mode scanned the drive with both Bitdefender and Malware and found nothing, I also performed a browser reset again. But the problem persists.
I tried a system restore to a date before I tried to download the PDF but came up with a (0x80070570) error although I've read this wont actually effect any malware.
This morning explorer just locked up completely taking several goes to close it down.
Any help would be gratefully received.
