A user reports that every time they use a search engine and click on a link to go to a website, they instead are taken to a site blocked by their company's content filter. The user is not trying to…

Browser hijacking is caused by malware that modifies browser settings, DNS configurations, or the hosts file to redirect URLs to attacker-controlled or unwanted sites. Anti-malware software can scan for and remove these malicious programs and undo the harmful changes they made, restoring normal browsing behavior.

Factory pre-installation refers to restoring a device to its original out-of-box state, which is an extreme and destructive measure that would cause data loss and is not the best first-line approach for a malware infection.

System Restore can revert system settings to a previous point but may not fully remove all malware, as some infections persist across restore points or re-infect the system after the restore.

Recovery console is a command-line environment used for low-level system repair tasks such as fixing boot records and is not designed for scanning and removing malware infections.