[mothered]

A while back, one of my test systems was Infected with an .exe hijacker which did exactly that- hijacked every executable file and rendered the lot useless. Every leading AV I tried (Kaspersky, Norton, Avast, Avira, ESET, Trend, McAfee etc) failed to detect the Infection, let alone remove It. Malwarebytes got rid of It within 5 minutes.

Same experience here. My mom (technologically illiterate) complained her computer was running slow, open her task manager to see like 40+ adwares and searchbar addons etc. She had norton at the time, which detected none of them. Not a single one. I installed Malwarebytes and ran a full scan, it caught every single one and tagged it as a PUP, then it was as simple as hitting uninstall on the lot.

I fully understand your mom's standpoint of not being technologically-minded. Same on my end.

The good thing about Malwarebytes, Is that It can run alongside any AV without compatibility Issues. As you're aware, be sure to keep It's Web, Exploit, Malware and Ransomware protection active at all times.