Goored is an abbreviation for (malicious) Google Redirects. although redirects have been experienced by users affected by the issue in other search engines like Yahoo as well.
Firefox users who have been hit with a Goored infection will notice that some of their searches are redirected to other websites.
This usually happens when they click on a search result in Google but may also happen without them doing anything (which means pages are opened automatically).
The Google redirect redirects user initiated searches to toher websites, it especially seems to happen often when searching for items that can be bought online like computer equipment, household items and basically anything that is available online.
The cause of this search redirect in Google seems to be a Firefox add-on / plugin that gets installed without the user’s consent. What makes this problematic is that the add-on or plugin is not listed when you open the list of installed extensions.
It is not clear how the add-on is installed other than that it is done automatically without the user’s consent.
Google redirects make use of JavaScript and a first temporary fix is to disable JavaScript in the Firefox web browser to stop the redirects. This can be done in Tools > Options > Content tab by unchecking Enable JavaScript.
Update: Press F12 in newer versions of Firefox, click on the settings icon at the top right of the developer tools window that opens up, scroll down and check “disable JavaScript”. Note that this only disables it for the active session and that it will be enabled again on next start of Firefox. End
This is also a good indicator if the computer has been infected with Goored. If the redirects stop, it is Goored. If they continue it is something else that is probably not running on the browser level but on the system level. In that case, try this solution to fix Google redirects on the system level.
The easiest way to clean Goored is by using the GooredFix tool that can be downloaded here. This tool should be executed as an administrator and Firefox needs to be closed before it is executed.
To execute the tool as an administrator right-click it and select Run as administrator from the menu.
The program will automatically scan the Firefox directories and the Registry entries of the web browser. It will furthermore clean offending add-ons if they are discovered and write a log file to the computer desktop.
While the tool worked fine during tests, it is highly suggested to create a system backup before you run it.
The developer of GooredFix has provided the following description of the program:
The infection is indeed a Firefox plugin, but is hidden from your plugins list. It works by checking the url bar for things like *google* *yahoo* etc, and then inserting an external Javascript file into the header of each search page. The external javascript file monitors links on the search results page and as soon as you click one it changes it so that it points to wherever it likes…
GooredFix deleted the registry entry and folder, and then when Firefox next starts it removes the plugin from its cache and loading point as the registry is no longer there.[There are also new variants that use] the “XUL Cache” extension to do redirects
Users should restart Firefox after the cleanup and perform a few searches in Google with JavaScript enabled to see if the problem persists or if GooredFix has removed the offending add-on.