Users are strongly advised to stay away from websites that are full of pop-ups and other commercial content because they could end up installing the likes of Habrahabr.ru on their computers. This website is part of a browser hijacker infection. If this browser hijacker enters your PC, then your default homepage and search engine get changed to Habrahabr.ru. You simply must remove Habrahabr.ru from the system immediately because the hijacker could be easily exploited by cyber criminals to promote malicious content. Before you know it, you might become a victim of yet another malicious scam. As a result, you could also face financial or identity theft, so you need to nip this problem in the bud.
If you do not speak Russian, you might find Habrahabr.ru confusing because the site is entirely in Russian. This would also imply that the installer file is mostly available on Russian websites, and the target audience for this infection is the Russian-speaking users. Nevertheless, that does not mean you are safe just because you speak some other language. The Internet has no borders, so if you access some website that is part of the Habrahabr.ru distribution network, chances are you will get infected with the hijacker in no time.
Most of the time, Habrahabr.ru is distributed via pornography and adult websites, that are full of pop-ups and various other types of advertisements. If you notice an icon of a nude woman’s picture on your desktop, it means that you must have downloaded something from a suspicious webpage. Double-clicking this icon launches the Habrahabr.ru installer, and then the browser hijacker will be set up on your computer. Consequently, the next time you open your web browser, your default homepage will be Habrahabr.ru, and all of your web browsing sessions will be monitored.
Have you noticed that Habrahabr.ru also has a lot of space for advertising? That is so because the hijacker makes money for its creators by redirecting users to commercial websites. Hits increase the website traffic, and consequently Habrahabr.ru generates financial profit via the pay-per-click system. To be honest, there is nothing illegal about that, but it presents a variety of potential security issues that should not be overlooked. Not to mention that Habrahabr.ru itself is too annoying and intrusive to tolerate.
For example, the infection modifies your shortcut target line. As a result, even if you restore your browser settings to default, Habrahabr.ru remains set as your homepage. What’s more, the infection creates a fake AppData folder to keep its files. You can find most of the hijackers files at C:\Users\koks\AppData\Local\temp\_MEI93014. You might as well delete the files in this directory in order to remove Habrahabr.ru for good.
This browser hijacker cannot be removed via Control Panel, and even if you go through a detailed manual removal process, there will still be a lot of unwanted junk files left. Deleting each and every single one of them manually is too tedious of a task. Therefore, when you are done with the manual removal, take your time to invest in a legitimate antispyware application. Only a computer security program of your choice will help you remove Habrahabr.ru fully from your system.
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