How to Remove LinkSafeness | LinkSafeness Removal Guide
LinkSafeness is a rogue security application that sports the new design that the Wini family of Rogue Antivirus has been using. It is usually installed through sites that claim you need a video codec or flash player update in order to view a video clip. Once established on your system it will proceed to create lots of files in the C;\windows\system32 folder and then on further scans claim that all of these files are infected with a virus. Of course, there is a catch it can’t clean the files out unless you pay for the software. Please don’t pay for this scam. Instead read on for how to remove LinkSafeness.
First you may wish to try visiting the control panel and choose add/remove programs to attempt to uninstall LinkSafeness. Even if this appears successful I would still download, update and scan with malwarebytes antimalware and a trusted antivirus product such as Avira/AVG/trendmicro, etc.
If the control panel is not helpful for removing this pest then you should continue with the following steps. DOwnload malwarebytes antimalware from the virus removal tool page. While you are there you may also wish to download a copy of process explorer as you may need it further in the process.
At this point install, update and run a full scan with malwarebytes antimalware. If you are unable to install it you have a few options. 1) rename the installer (mbam-setup.exe) to another filename (firefox.exe) and then retry the install. 2) reboot into safe mode (with networking) and retry the install, update and scan. 3) Proceed with the next steps of killing off the running processes associated with LinkSafeness and then retry the install of malwarebytes.
The following programs are associated with LinkSafeness and should be killed off using the task manager:
10595zor55f3.exe
10715virus9z5.exe
t5bgc2co.exe
3z19do9nlo5der78.exe
LinkSafeness.exe
Uninstall.exe
The above filenames appear to have a random component to them. Please use the patterns shown above as well as the file locations listed below and what you find on your own system as a guide for which running processes may need to be killed off. If you are unable to launch task manager you have a few options. 1) copy taskmgr.exe and paste it to the desktop, then rename the program file to something else (firefox.exe) and retry launching it. 2) boot into safe mode and retry (using option 1 if necessary.) 3) Use processes explorer to kill off the above processes.
The following files and folders are associated with LinkSafeness and should be deleted for the manual removal of LinkSafeness:
%docs%\All Users\Desktop\LinkSafeness.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\LinkSafeness
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\LinkSafeness\1 LinkSafeness.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\LinkSafeness\2 Homepage.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\LinkSafeness\3 Uninstall.lnk
%progfiles%\LinkSafeness Software
%progfiles%\LinkSafeness Software\LinkSafeness
%progfiles%\LinkSafeness Software\LinkSafeness\LinkSafeness.exe
%progfiles%\LinkSafeness Software\LinkSafeness\uninstall.exe
%win%\10595zor55f3.exe
%win%\10715virus9z5.exe
%win%\10858noz9a-virus5f5.ocx
%win%\system32\3fc2th9ezt7504.ocx
%win%\system32\3z19do9nlo5der78.exe
%win%\system32\3z721worm4915.ocx
%tmp%\t5bgc2co.exe
Once again there is likely a randomized component to the above filenames. Use the patterns and locations listed above and the files you find on your own system to figure out which files should be deleted.
Even after a perfect manual removal of LinkSafeness I would still install, update and scan with malwarebytes antimalware and a trusted antivirus application (AVG/AVIRA/FPROT/TrendMicro/etc.) to make sure all is cleaned up. Some rogues will have installer or other trojan elsewhere on the drive and there is almost always some changes to the registry that should be cleaned up.