Often when your computer is infected with malware, you will find that it has made changes to your browser settings. These may range from comparatively harmless changes to your homepage or search engine to more serious threats such as installations of plugins that may be used to spy on your activity or change the browser’s security settings to make your computer more vulnerable to future attacks. These changes may not be easily removed by some of the popular malware scanners and the only option would be to completely uninstall your browser and reinstall it once again. However uninstalling your browser may mean losing all of your settings (e.g. bookmarks) unless you have backed them up or uninstalling may not even be possible, such as with Internet Explorer. As such, having a tool that can check for problems within your browser and fix them would be a better option and that is what Browser Repair Tool does.

WHAT IS IT AND WHAT DOES IT DO

Main Functionality

Browser Repair Tool is a tool that repairs browser and networking settings which have been changed by malware. The tool scans and fixes any errors/changes in regards to homepage changes, safe startup items, DNS settings, Title Bar, BHO plug-in, and more.

Pros

• Offers a large number of repair options, doing a good job at undoing any changes malware may have made
• Is portable

Cons

• Can repair problems only on Internet Explorer at the moment but Firefox and Chrome support is said to to come with v2.0
• Displays ads

Discussion

Browser Repair Tool is a simple program that has only one major function: repair the browser and network settings changed by malware infections. Currently Browser Repair Tool is compatible only with the Internet Explorer though the makers have confirmed that they will be adding support to Firefox and Chrome in the next version.

The program is portable and can be launched directly by opening the downloaded file. Here you are presented with a long list of repair options that the program can perform.

The list of options includes restoring the IE Title Bar and the Homepage (there is also an option to use a blank page), restoring the default search engine, Explorer Security Item, IE as default browser, desktop icon, Favorites, and more. There are more than 20 repair options provided, though you are not required to use them all — you can pick and chose. In fact, not all of the repair options are selected as default and you will have to make appropriate selections depending on how much problem your browser is experiencing.

You can also reset the DNS settings for your computer by clicking on the Reset DNS Settings button near the top-right corner. The right hand side of the interface also displays the Network Status and whether you are connected to the internet or not, giving you quick information bout your connection staus.

Conclusion and Download Link

By focusing solely on internet browsers, Browser Repair Tool proves itself to be a very useful software for those who are experiencing problems with their browsers following a malware infection and are unable to fix the problem using malware scanners/removers. However the fact that it is compatible only with the Internet Explorer means that people who use other browsers will have to wait until the developers release the second version of the program. Although, you should remember, Internet Explorer comes with all Windows, so even if you don’t use it you still have it installed… so it is a good idea to repair it following an infection using Browser Repair Tool.

Price: Free

Note: The download page this program says “download trial”. I’m not sure why it says “trial” but if you scroll down the same page you will see “Price:FREE”. As far as I can tell, this is a completely free program (at least right now) — I don’t know why it says “download trial”.

Version reviewed: v1.0.39

Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista /7

Download size: 0.6MB

VirusTotal malware scan results: 2/44

Portability: Portable, no installation required

Browser Repair Tool download page

[via Ghacks]