Remove Chainthorn.com “Virus” (Chrome/FF/IE)

Chainthorn.com – Details

It is highly important that you keep your browser clean, secure and well-optimized. This is not only for your convenience while browsing but also for your computer security. If you Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or whatever other browser you prefer to use, has a lot of unneeded extensions and other unnecessary, or even outright annoying, elements in it, then the chances of some malicious program exploiting weaknesses in those elements and, in that way, infecting your computer, significantly increase. A very common example of something you shouldn’t have in your browser, and yet a lot of people still do, is a browser hijacker, like the ones called www2.savemax.store and www1.ecleneue.com. Now, though this term may sound scary, a hijacker isn’t really what you can call a virus. It is instead a small extension-like element for the browser that causes page-redirects, and tries to promote some homepage, toolbar, or search engine. The Chainthorn.com “Virus” homepage or a search engine with the Chainthorn.com logo, for example, is what you may end up in your browser if it has gotten infiltrated by a hijacker. Recently, a significant number of users have complained from exactly that – their browsers’ starting pages have suddenly gotten replaced by Chainthorn.com and a similar thing has happened to their default search engines. Some even report aggressive page-redirects to other promotional sites filled with ads and other annoying content. Now, all of this may seem a bit unnerving, especially to someone who is still an inexperienced user and has never before encountered a browser hijacker. However, the unauthorized change in the settings of your browser doesn’t necessarily mean that you have gotten attacked by some malicious virus or malware program. In fact, if there was indeed a virus in your system, you’d probably not notice it unless your antivirus managed to detect it. The actual malicious programs – ones belonging to categories like Ransomware, Trojan Horses, Spyware and so on, tend to be very secretive and covert in their operations and they would never risk getting exposed by making such obvious changes in your browser.

Nevertheless, as we mentioned at the start of the article, keeping your browser clean is highly important for the safety of your whole system which is why, if there’s currently a hijacker in the browser, you should definitely take care of it as soon as possible. The presence of a browser hijacker in your browser is definitely a liability and could potentially get exploited by all sorts of insidious programs that want to enter your computer and wreak havoc inside of it.

Can I remove Chainthorn.com “Virus” myself?

In order to deal with the current browser hijacker, you are advised to use the removal guide that you will see below this paragraph. It will help you eliminate the unwanted software component and remove everything related to Chainthorn.com from your browser. Next, it is important to remember to keep away from sketchy web locations and to only download software form sources that are known to be reliable. Also, do not forget to uncheck the optional clauses in the installers of new programs that seem to allow unwanted changes in your browser. This is oftentimes referred to as program bundling and it is a method commonly used for browser hijacker distribution.

SUMMARY:

Remove Chainthorn.com “Virus”

Chainthorn.com Android Removal guide

Chainthorn.com Mac Removal guide.

The following guide is only for windows users, it will help our readers get rid of the unpleasant Chainthorn.com software. Follow the instructions and complete each step for best results. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them using our comment section down below.

Preparation: Entering Safe Mode and Revealing Hidden Files and Folders

Before you proceed with the actual removal instructions, you will need to take two extra steps in order to ensure that the guide has maximum effect.

For best results, we advise our readers to boot into Safe Mode prior to attempting to remove Chainthorn.com. If you do not know how to do that, here is a separate How to Enter Safe Mode guide.

Also, in order to be able to see any potentially undesirable files, you should reveal any hidden files and folders on your PC – here is how to do that.

Removing Chainthorn.com From Windows

Step 1: Checking the Task Manager

Before we start deleting files related to Chainthorn.com we want to make sure that all services related to the viruses are killed before we proceed. 

Open your Task Manager by using the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys and go to the Processes tab. Look for any suspicious processes. For example, any unfamiliar process that uses high amounts of RAM and/or CPU. If you aren’t sure if a certain process comes from malware, tell us in the comments.

Right-click on any process that you consider shady and select Open File Location. Delete anything from the file location of the process.

Step 2: Disabling Startup programs

Use the Winkey + R keyboard combination to open the Run search bar and type msconfig. Hit Enter and in the newly opened window, go to the Startup tab. There, look for suspicious entries with unknown manufacturer or ones that have the name Chainthorn.com on them. Right-click on those, and select disable.

Step 3: Uninstalling unwanted programs

Go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Uninstall a Program. Click on Installed On to sort the entries by date from most recent to oldest and look through the programs that come at the top of the list. Right-click on any entries that appear shady and unwanted and then select Uninstall to remove them from your PC. If you see the name Chainthorn.com in the list of programs, be sure to remove the software without hesitation.

Step 4: Checking for shady IP’s

Open your Start Menu and copy-paste notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts in the search bar. In the notepad file, look below Localhost and see if there are any IP addresses there. If there are some, send them to us in the comments and we will tell you if you should take any action. [add_forth_banner]

Step 5: Cleaning-up the browsers

You will also have to uninstall any undesirable browser extensions from your browser programs. Here’s how to do that for some of the more popular browsers:

Getting rid of Chainthorn.com from Chrome

Open Chrome and open its main menu. Go to More Tools > Extensions. Look through the list of extensions and uninstall any that you think could be suspicious. To remove them – click on the trash can icon next to each extension.

You can also use a specialized Chrome CleanUp tool if you cannot manually remove a certain extension. Here is an article where you can learn more about the CleanUp tool.

Removing Chainthorn.com From Firefox

Open Firefox and go to its Menu. Select the Add-ons button.From the left panel, select Extensions and take a look at the different entries. Remove any of the that might be unwanted.

Removing Chainthorn.com From Windows Internet Explorer

Once you open your IE browser, click on the Tools button at the top-right corner of the program and from the drop-down menu select Manage Add-ons. Check each one of the four different groups of add-ons and search for anything that seems undesirable. If you find anything, click on it and them select Remove.

Removing Chainthorn.com From Windows Edge

Open the main menu of Microsoft Edge and go to Extensions. Find the extensions that you believe could be unwanted and right-click on them. Then, select Uninstall.

Step 6: Checking the Registry Editor

Open the Run search bar again and type regedit in it. Hit Enter and once the Registry Editor opens press Ctrl + F. In the search field type Chainthorn.com and click on Find Next. Tell us in the comments if any results came up when you searched for Chainthorn.com in your PC’s Registry.

Step 7: Deleting recent entries

For this step, you will have to open your Start Menu and copy-paste the following lines, one by one:

• %AppData%
• %LocalAppData%
• %ProgramData%
• %WinDir%
• %Temp%

Hit Enter after each one to open a file directory. In the directories, delete the most recent entries that you find there. In the Temp folder, delete all files.

Step 8: System Restore

In order to be fully sure that the unwanted software has been removed from your machine, you can also try using a Restore Point to roll back your system its last stable configuration. However, in order to do that, you would have to previously had had a restore point created. On most systems, such points get created automatically but this isn’t always the case.

• If you want to learn how to configure System Restore and how to manually create Restore Points, follow this link.

1. Open your Start Menu and type System Restore.
2. Click on the first result – a setup wizard should open.
3. Read the brief description of the process and select Next.
4. Now, choose a restore from the presented list. You can also check the Show more restore points option in order to reveal any other restore points that might be saved on your PC.
5. Click on Scan for affected programs to see what programs will get deleted or restored after you use the Restore Point. (optional)

   

6. Click on next and take and then select Finish.
7. A warning window will appear telling you that once the process starts, it shouldn’t be interrupted. Select Yes and be patient as this might take some time. Do not do anything on your PC throughout the duration of the process.

Step 9: Windows Refresh/Reset

Use this method only if nothing else has worked so far as it is a last resort option. If you do not know how to do it, this separate guide will give you the information that you need.