How to Remove Systweak Toolbar (Manual Removal Guide)

Yesterday when I launch my Firefox, I found that my default homepage has been changed to another one without my knowledge and a toolbar named Systweak appeared under the address bar. I never changed my homepage, nor did I install the Systweak Toolbar on my browser. Why my homepage was changed and where did the toolbar come from? Is possible that I remove it manually? What should I do about it?

Systweak Toolbar is a browser add-on installed on users’ Web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, this toolbar is considered as a browser hijacker because it takes control over the Web browsers and does some things that users may not have specifically requested. It is reported that this toolbar is made and promoted by Conduit Ltd in order to promote certain products and boost website traffic for the purpose of making great profits. Once this toolbar is installed into your computer, it will change your default browser homepage to “search.conduit.com” and search engine to “SysTweak” by modifying the default settings of the browsers, DNS settings and host file. In this way, Systweak Toolbar can take control over your browsers and show many advertisements and sponsored links to you, either on the web pages or in the search results. Moreover, this toolbar may collect your personal information by monitoring your online activities. That information collected may include your IP address, email address, search preferences and even website usernames and passwords. We sincerely suggest that you remove this toolbar timely, in order to protect your own privacy and get rid of those annoying advertisements.

How does Systweak Toolbar gets installed on your browsers without any knowledge? Actually, this toolbar can come bundled with freeware or shareware. When you install a piece of free software that had bundled within the installer of this toolbar, it can gets installed on your browsers without asking for your approval. Software containing installer of this toolbar may conclude Language Learning, DealFinder, ClickDownload, Yontoo or FBPhotoZoom. So, it is advised that you read the Terms and Agreements before installing any software on your computer. Do not click the “Next” button rashly without reading about the installation prompts carefully. If the installer offers an Advanced or Custom option button, click it to find out whether there is any other optional software installed during the installation process.

You may find Systweak Toolbar is hard to remove. Even if you reset your homepage, the toolbar and its own site (http://search.conduit.com/) will still appear when you run your browsers. This is because that you do not remove the core parts of the toolbar from your computer. Please follow the steps below to manually remove this toolbar:

Step1: Reset the affected browsers to their default state.

For Mozilla Firefox:
1. Click on the Firefox menu, select “Help” and then “Troubleshooting Information”.

2. Click “Reset Firefox” in the window that opens. Then, Firefox will close and be reset.

3. In the pop-up window, click “Reset Firefox”. When it’s done, click “Finish” and Firefox will open.

After resetting the Firefox, Systweak Toolbar as well as the following items and settings will be removed: themes, extensions, search engines, download history, download actions, plug-in settings, toolbar customizations, website-specific preferences, user styles and social features, DOM storage and security settings. Afterwards, you can add your favorite homepage and search engine.

For Google Chrome:
1. Click the Chrome menu (Wrench icon or 3-bar icon) and select Settings.

2. Click “Show advanced settings”.

3. Find and click the “Reset browser settings” section.

4. In the dialog that appears, click Reset. Then Google Chrome will start applying the default settings.

Then, the themes, extensions, search engine, homepage, startup tabs, new tab page, pinned tabs, content settings, cookies and site data will be removed or cleared. You can reset the homepage and search engine you like.

For Internet Explorer:
1. Click “Tool” menu and select “Internet Options”.

2. Click the “Advanced” tab and click on the “Reset” button.

3. IE browser will display a “Reset Internet Explorer Settings” box, tick “Delete personal settings” and click “Reset”.

4. When IE finishes applying the default settings, click “Close”, and then click “OK”. Exit and then start IE to make the changes take effect.

Then, homepage, browsing history, search providers, Accelerators, Tracking Protection, and ActiveX Filtering data will be removed. Next, you can add the preferred homepage and search engine.

Step 2: Remove the malicious files.

Navigate to the local disk C, search for and delete any files associated with Systweak Toolbar.

%AllUsersProfile%\random.exe
%UserProfile%\Desktop\[toolbar name].lnk
%Documents and Settings%\[UserName]\Application Data\[random].exe
%Documents and Settings%\[UserName]\Desktop\[random].lnk

Step 3: Remove the malicious registry entries.

Click on the Start Orb, type “regedit” into the search box, and then click “regedit.exe” from the result list. When the registry editor is opened, you need to find out and delete any registry entries related to the toolbar.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “[random].exe”
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\[toolbarname]
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce\[RANDOM CHARACTERS] %AppData%\[RANDOM CHARACTERS]\[RANDOM CHARACTERS].exe

After you accomplish the steps above, Systweak Toolbar should have been completely removed from your computer. But it should be noted that, manually removing the toolbar may caused unexpected system problems if any files or registry entries are wrongly deleted from your computer. To safely and effectively get rid of Systweak Toolbar, you can also consider using a powerful toolbar removal tool. A reliable removal tool can save much time and energy for you.