I think my computer has been infected by a browser hijacker. Every time
I search something, and I click on one of the search results, I am always linked
to a website that I don¡¯t intend to visit. For example, when I click on a
search result which should link to an eBay page, it shows me the website
Iminent or other unknown websites. That really annoys me. I
have run a full system scan with my antivirus program but it cannot detect
anything. How can I remove it effectively?
What Is Iminent and Is It Harmful?
Thoroughly seemingly legitimate, Iminent is actually a website related
to browser hijacker which is able to hijack your currently-used browsers like
IE, Chrome and Firefox to its own website or others. This browser hijacker
usually makes use of BHOs (browser helper objects) and other channels to
penetrate into your computer and then modifies your browser settings without any
consent. Once your browsers are infected, it will means that some information
about your online activities may be furtively collected by this browser
hijacker, for examples, how frequent you visit a website, how long you stay on a
webpage, what you search, and even what you type in a banking-related website.
After that, these data will be transmitted to the remote hackers via a specific
service. It is really dangerous that this browser hijacker stays on the infected
computer for a long time.
By constantly redirecting browsers to Iminent, the browser hijacker can
increase the website traffic and allow the hackers to make a great profit. The
hackers utilize this browser hijacker to hijack browsers, collect search terms
and boost traffic of their own website or other affiliated websites. Some search
results offered by the search engine may have nothing to do with your search
terms, and they will link to some websites which show you a lot of needless ads
and other misleading messages. In addition, this browser hijacker can install a
malicious toolbar on the browsers and it is hard to remove it through
conventional uninstall method. This browser hijacker has no built-in uninstaller
and it can deeply hide in the infected computer in order to evade detection and
removal by antivirus programs. It is no doubt that Iminent browser hijacker will
do anything good in the infected computer, and you should remove it as soon as
possible.
To manually remove the browser hijacker, you should acquire sufficient
computer knowledge and skills. If you are not clearly how to perform the manual
removal, please do not try it in case of any system damage.
Payloads of the browser hijacker
1 It hijacks your browsers to unknown websites which are full of various
misleading ads.
2 It runs in the background of the system and consumes lots of system
resources, making your computer run extremely slowly.
3 It may drop other types of threats like virus, Trojan and spyware onto
your computer to do more harmful actions.
4 It would help the hackers to record your online activities and steal
sensitive personal information and data.
5 It can modify your default DNS settings and block your access to the
websites that you want to visit.
6 It changes the default browser homepage and search engine without any
consent.
Does An Antivirus Program Help to Remove the browser hijacker?
Generally, users will run their antivirus programs to perform a system
scan when they suspect that Iminent browser hijacker is on their computers;
however, they would find no threats after spending lots of time to do the
scanning. From this, users should realize that antivirus programs are not
all-powerful. In some cases, they cannot detect and delete every kind of virus
from the infected computer. The fact is that the number of viruses always
increases rapidly and most antivirus programs don¡¯t have the information of the
newly-created viruses in their data base. Moreover, this browser hijacker is so
canny that it will disable the security tools installed on the computer, so that
it can evade detection and removal by the security tools. Thus, sometimes it
seems not workable to use an antivirus program to remove the browser hijacker
from your computer ¨C in this case, you have to manually delete the malicious
files and registry entries related to the browser hijacker from your computer.
Guide to Manually Remove Iminent
Iminent browser hijacker is a nasty threat that is able to attack
browsers including Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Two of
the most obvious symptoms of being infected by this browser hijacker are that
the default homepage is modified and browsers are always redirected to Iminent
and some undesired websites. With this browser hijacker inside, your computer
will probably be attacked by other types of threats like adware, Trojan and
spyware. In a word, this browser hijacker slows down PC speed, disables
important programs, blocks access to specific websites, and messes up browsers
settings, and should be removed from the infected computer promptly.
1. Stop running processes related to this browser hijacker
a: When the
Windows Task manager appears, switch to Processes tab.
b: Find out and
select the processes related to the virus by name random.exe, and click on the
¡°End process¡± button.
2. Remove the browser hijacker from Internet
Explorer:
a: Start IE, go to Tools and select Internet Options.
b: Find
General section, remove the unwanted address as a home page.
c: Then go to
Search section, find Settings button and choose Manage Add-ons
d: Erase the
redirect and after the action, close Manage Add-ons
3. Remove the browser
hijacker from Mozilla Firefox:
a: Open Mozilla Firefox browser, click on
tools and go to Options.
b: Switch to General tab, remove the unwanted
address as a startup site.
c: Then, go to: Firefox -> Add-ons ->
Add-ons Manager -> Remove.
d: In the Search list, select Manage Search
Engines and erase this redirect and choose OK
4. Remove the browser hijacker
from Google Chrome:
a: Open Google Chrome and navigate to Settings tab and
Set pages.
b: Erase Iminent which was seta as the startup site and choose
OK
c: Find Manage search engines and here, erase this redirect.
d: Press
on OK, and restart Google Chrome.
5. Delete all registry files created by
this redirect
a. While the Registry Editor is opened, search for the registry
key ¡°HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ Iminent.¡± Right-click this registry key and
select
¡°Delete.¡±
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
¡°[RANDOM].exe¡±
b. Navigate to directory %PROGRAM_FILES%\ Iminent \ and
delete the infected files
manually.
%AppData%Local[random].exe
C:\Documents and
Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\*.exe
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\*.*
Important Note: In case that you are not experienced in computer and
afraid of making mistakes during the manual removal, you can search for and use
an advanced removal tool which can help you remove the threat completely.