Wajam, won't stay gone

Every time I reboot my computer, my Google searches redirect into Yahoo searches. Sometimes it says Wajam instead of Yahoo. I've found the exact process that causes this, and when I end that process, the issue goes away. So I found where in program files it was (a folder named some complete nonsense like arhgf74rw4y984hndsfk) and just deleted that folder and everything in it, then wiped the recycle bin. After that, problem solved... until next reboot. Then the problem is back and yes, the junk folder exists again somehow. I could just keep deleting it but how does it manage to come back from nonexistence? I remember doing a Malwarebyte scan the first time this happened and it didn't seem to find the culprit.

This may help: http://www.wajam.com/howto/uninstall

It doesn't seem to be installed as "Wajam" though. It's just a folder with a bunch of nonsense as the name, I have no idea how it got there and I believe there was an uninstall file but it was a .dat or something else that opens in a hex editor by default on my computer.

antivirus scan? could potentially be another virus that happens to use wajam as default for something

edit: i'm dumb and can't read, sorry

The Once-ler said:

It doesn't seem to be installed as "Wajam" though. It's just a folder with a bunch of nonsense as the name, I have no idea how it got there and I believe there was an uninstall file but it was a .dat or something else that opens in a hex editor by default on my computer.

Click to expand...

change the default program opener for that type of file

I'm not sure what would run a .dat file as intended anyway. Usually those contain files for games or whatnot in my experience, and they're all different.

I had to reboot today and this time I opened task manager before Chrome to see if the crap was back. It wasn't, but later it appeared. This is what the crap folder looks like:

It looks like you got some adware, most likely because you didn't pay attention when downloading something

Here's a good guide to remove that annoying thing: https://malwaretips.com/blogs/wajam-virus-removal/

I strongly doubt it was from a download, I've learned in the past to always uncheck shit like that whenever I download something. If I didn't, it probably didn't give me the opportunity to, and that's even scarier.

I've run Malwarebytes and it didn't fix the issue, though I think it did say some crap was removed.

I just tried something else, and it's probably a really stupid idea, but I thought to myself, if these files will re-install themselves, why not "delete" them without really deleting them? (basically I opened some of them up in a hex editor and turned them into empty files. The idea is that maybe whatever re-adds them does so because it notices the files are gone)

I doubt that would work... I would rather reinstall Windows, if AdwCleaner doesn't work.