Remove Traffic.outbrain.com Hijacker from Chrome/Firefox/IE

Suddenly Traffic.outbrain.com took over your homepage and you cannot remove it.

Is your PC currently having issues with a nasty redirect virus? Have you noticed that your browser settings have been changed completely without your permission? Are you seeing random search results and unknown web links leading to questionable websites? Then it’s rather safe to assume that you’re dealing with a browser hijacker. In this particular case – Traffic.outbrain.com. Now, hijackers indeed are more annoying than dangerous but if you make the crucial mistake to keep this pest instead of deleting it on the spot, your future self will rightfully be very upset with you. The parasite works through a malicious browser add-on and offers such a rich variety of tricks, traps and threats that avoiding its endless manipulations becomes almost impossible. Traffic.outbrain.com messes with your browser settings even further and, as its names suggests, aims for generating web traffic. This program was not designed to be beneficial and it was certainly never supposed to enhance your Internet experience. If anything, the parasite will demolish it. Hidden behind the harmless facade of a decent search engine, Traffic.outbrain.com poses a direct threat to your machine, your cyber security and your privacy, not no mention your nerves. You can clearly see that this infection truly gives you no reason to keep it on board. Therefore, if you want to regain control over your browsers (and you probably do) as well as protect yourself from more malware (and you definitely do), then keep on reading.

How did I get infected with?

Cyber viruses apply many different techniques to travel the Web but do you know what all these methods have in common? There are all sneaky. Usually when you download a freeware or a software bundle, especially from some unverified website, you have no idea how close to infections you actually are. The truth is, most program packages include at least one highly unwanted intruder and if you’re careless enough, you will install it too. Freeware bundling offers a very convenient infiltration method for all kinds of parasites imaginable including vicious Trojans and aggressive ransomware. That means it takes about as much as a single moment of distraction and negligence to install a whole bunch of infections alongside the software you wanted. No need to tell you exactly how dangerous this tactic is, right? Not only does your PC end up infected but you also remain completely oblivious to this fact. To prevent it, always opt for the Advanced or Custom option in the Setup Wizard and don’t give green light to anything that you don’t trust. True, you may lose a bit more time checking the bundle beforehand than simply clicking “I accept”, but this way you will save yourself much more time and energy in the long run. Denying access to a parasite at such an early stage is relatively easy; dealing with a nasty virus which already managed to get downloaded on your PC system – not that much. You should also go through the Terms and Conditions of the software you install to make sure it’s absolutely virus-free. It goes without saying that avoiding all sorts of spam email-attachments and spam messages is a must too.

Why is this dangerous?

Browser hijackers aren’t popular for being harmless and Traffic.outbrain.com doesn’t deviate from this malicious pattern. Once the virus slithers itself into your PC, it successfully takes down your browsers (including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome). Did you know that it’s perfectly compatible with three of the most commonly used browsers out there? You do now. The hijacker then installs its nasty browser extension without bothering to ask for your permission first. Your consent is simply not important. Traffic.outbrain.com replaces your default search engine and your default homepage with its own domain so every time you attempt to use your machine, you will stumble across the parasite. What is a lot worse than the nuisance, however, is the fact that Traffic.outbrain.com displays unreliable, potentially dangerous search results and mixes them with the safe ones. It’s a complete gamble where the corrupted web links will lead you to – could be a compromised page filled with malware or a compromised page filled with bogus products attempting to steal your money without providing you anything in exchange. Long story short, you can no longer trust your own browsers once they have been infected with the parasite. It’s recommended that you stay away from all search results because the fact they are sponsored means they are incredibly harmful. Also, due to the hijacker’s devious presence on your machine, consider you browsing history, search queries, passwords, usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, etc. monitored. Hackers don’t tend to think twice when they have the opportunity to generate more revenue so you should know that your private data will most likely be sold to some third parties behind your back. This hides an enormous privacy threat, though, because you never know when exactly and for what purpose exactly your information might go. What you should know for sure is the fact that your cyber safety is the very last concern of crooks. All in all, the hijacker doesn’t really leave you another option other than removing it and the faster you do so, the better. The parasite also causes an overall sluggishness of the entire computer so you may experience browsing freezing and/or crashing when you least expect it. To delete Traffic.outbrain.com manually, please follow the detailed instructions you will find down below.

How to Remove Traffic.outbrain.com virus

If you perform exactly the steps below you should be able to remove the Traffic.outbrain.com infection. Please, follow the procedures in the exact order. Please, consider to print this guide or have another computer at your disposal. You will NOT need any USB sticks or CDs.

The Traffic.outbrain.com adware is specifically designed to make money. It generates web traffic, collects sales leads for other dubious sites, and will display advertisements and sponsored links within your web browser.

STEP 1: Uninstall Traffic.outbrain.com from Add\Remove Programs

STEP 2: Clean Traffic.outbrain.com from Chrome Firefox or Internet Explorer

STEP 3: Permanently Remove Traffic.outbrain.com leftovers from the System

STEP 1 : Uninstall Traffic.outbrain.com from your computer

Simultaneously press the Windows Logo Button and then “R” to open the Run Command Window

 

Type “regedit”

 

navigate to HKCU\software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

Modify the string with a value data and set it to google.com for example.

STEP 2 : Remove Traffic.outbrain.com homepage from Chrome, Firefox and IE

• Open Google Chrome

• In the Main Menu, select Tools then Extensions
• Remove the Traffic.outbrain.com by clicking on the little recycle bin
• Reset Google Chrome by Deleting the current user to make sure nothing is left behind

• Open Mozilla Firefox

• Press simultaneously Ctrl+Shift+A
• Disable the unwanted Extension
• Go to Help
• Then Troubleshoot information
• Click on Reset Firefox

• Open Internet Explorer

• On the Upper Right Corner Click on the Gear Icon
• Click on Internet options
• go to Toolbars and Extensions and disable the unknown extensions
• Select the Advanced tab and click on Reset

• Restart Internet Explorer

How to Permanently Remove Traffic.outbrain.com Virus (automatic) Removal Guide

To make sure manual removal is successful, we recommend to use a free scanner of any professional antimalware program to identify possible registry leftovers or temporary files.