Hey everyone! I have a bit of a mess on my hands. A while ago, my email got hacked, and ever since then, my PC has been acting strange. There's a window that pops up every time I boot up or shut down my computer, but it disappears so quickly I can't even read it. My antivirus (Avast) isn't detecting any viruses, which I find hard to believe. Also, my browser (Opera) keeps defaulting to Bing instead of Google. It claims to be in standby mode, even though I thought I turned that off. I've noticed that Chrome and Edge have reinstalled themselves too, and I'm having trouble getting rid of Edge. Can anyone help me out with these issues?
2 Answers
Honestly, you might want to ditch Avast. It’s not the best antivirus out there. Consider using Windows Defender plus an ad blocker instead. Check your sync files for anything weird, too. For your browser issue, make sure to dive into the settings both in Windows and your browser to sort it out.
First, try opening Task Manager and check the Startup tab. Disable anything you don’t recognize—this could help with that weird window popping up. Also, check Task Scheduler to see if there’s anything set to run at startup. And just a heads up, what you experienced with hacking isn’t the same as having a virus. They could have just accessed your accounts online. By the way, Edge is integrated into Windows, so good luck uninstalling it—Windows tends to reinstall it if you try.
If you're looking for alternatives, Autoruns by Microsoft works really well to manage startup items better than Task Manager.