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In this article we are going to try and help you remove Searchinme.com. Our instructions cover all Windows versions as well as most browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.
Welcome to our informative article about Searchinme.com. Probably you are here because you have become a victim of this annoying program. It could have changed the settings of your browser regarding the preferred homepage. It may also program your browser to redirect you to different places online. What’s more, it may begin to generate an excessive number of online ads like pop-ups and banners which may worsen your online experience. That is why we are here, to help you deal with this software and fully understand its nature.
What is typical of Searchinme.com?
It is an exemplary browser hijacker. It means that once it is installed on your PC, it will change the settings of your browser: it may set a new homepage, it may start redirecting you to different websites, it may start displaying irritating ads, which promote something. The type of your browser doesn’t really matter, it could be Firefox, or Chrome, or Opera; the hijacker works with all of them. However, you should always remember that this whole set of annoying activities is legal. Producing and showing ads is legal, promoting products is also legitimate. This is the core of the popular pay-per-click system: each programmer, who agrees to distribute ad-generating software, gets money based on the number of the displayed and clicked on advertisements. And developers most often distribute browser hijackers in the following ways: by torrents, shareware websites, spam emails and software bundles. We are going to elaborate on the term software bundle, because this is the preferred way of spreading programs like the one you are dealing with now. Software bundles are products of the process called bundling. While this process is taking place, developers create mixtures of their own programs and Adware, as well as browser hijackers. They do that according to the aforementioned PPC scheme and get paid for that.
After that they distribute the bundles for free. Once you have downloaded such a bundle, you can use every single piece of software from it. You can also avoid Searchinme.com, Adware and other hijackers if you install the programs you need in the proper way. It means that there is an option of the installation wizard that will allow you choose what to integrate with your PC and what to ignore. This feature is often called Customized. Also, it could have many different names: Advanced; Custom. Whatever the name is, it will best work for you if you still want a particular software product from the bundle but not the hijackers and the Adware that come with it.
Is Searchinme.com malicious?
Another popular question is whether browser hijackers represent malware-based programs or not. Fortunately, we are very happy to tell you that the answer is NO. There is nothing malicious about browser hijackers. They may have many questionable and rather disturbing features, but they certainly do not act like viruses. Typical malware products are able to hijack your entire system, block some of your files and put a double key to lock them up. They could also destroy data and crash systems. What’s more, they are even capable of stealing important private credentials concerning your bank and social media accounts. On the contrary, Searchinme.com is pretty harmless compared to malware and Ransomware. It can only show ads and strive to generate only the ones that you are supposed to like based on the data that it extracts from your surfing history. This action could be considered intrusive but it is the thing that browser hijackers and Adware do. Nothing special and particularly dangerous. Maybe you have heard that Searchinme.com may also redirect you to possibly dangerous places on the Internet, but chances of this are rather slim. Definitely, you may be facing a potentially unwanted and irritating program, but no virus at all.
How should you remove Searchinme.com?
You should always research a little bit before trusting a guide or a tool to remove the infection. Luckily, down here you can find an already tested removal guide that works perfectly for that purpose. It has been created to fight Searchinme.com and to uninstall it completely from your computer. What we can advise you for your future browsing activities is to always be particularly careful because the web is a vast space and full of dangerous or simply disturbing software.
Remove Searchinme.com
Many types of malware will restrict your access to their core files. It is highly recommended that you reboot your PC in safe mode before attempting to use this guide.
- To enable Safe Mode reboot you PC, then hit F8 repeatedly. When the corresponding menu opens please select Safe Mode with Networking.
WARNING! If you are using Windows 8,0 or later and/or your operating system is installed on a fast SSD drive this may fail to work. In this case click here to see how to start your PC in Safe Mode.
#1: Uninstall the malicious program from your control panel
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Enter control panel to look for any suspicious programs, which may have installed on your PC. To do that:
- Navigate to your Desktop
- Press simultaneously the Win button together with the R button (Win+R)
- In the Run window that just opened type appwiz.cpl
- Go through the list of programs and find Searchinme.com or anything else that may seem suspicious. Right-click on it and choose the uninstallation option
WARNING! Carefully read any confirmation messages that may be created in the process. Sometimes you may get offers to download more Adware applications and this can be linked to either the Yes or the No answer depending on the wording!
- Optional:
Go through the list of programs again and check online for any potentially unwanted programs. We have an article that covers this awesome free software that makes sure that your computer is free from bloatware and programs that you don’t need.
#2: Remove Searchinme.com From Chrome
Now we’ll remove the extensions that the malware has attached to your browser.
- Open your Google Chrome browser.
- Type chrome://extensions/ in the URL address bar and press Enter.
- Click on “Developer Mode” on the top right and look for the extension installed by Searchinme.com and anything that might be related to it. Copy their IDs (the string of letters), then remove them by clicking on the trash bin icon.
- Type Regedit in the Windows Start Menu and press Enter. Go in : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Chrome\Extensions and delete the entries corresponding to the suspicious IDs you recorded.
#3: Remove Searchinme.com From Firefox
- Open Mozilla Firefox browser.
- Type “about:support” in the URL address bar and press Enter.
- Click on the “Refresh Firefox” button on the right and confirm.
#4 Remove Searchinme.com From Internet Explorer
- Open your Internet Explorer internet browser.
- Click on the Gear icon on the up right, then on manage add-ons.
- Go through the list disable any suspicious extensions.
#5 Remove any leftover parasitic processes
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From the task manager:
- Use Ctrl + Shift + Esc and open the Task manager, then click on the Processes
- Go through the list of processes and look for unknown or otherwise suspicious entries.
- If you see anything suspicious right click on the process and shoes Open File Location, then terminate the process and delete any files you find in the directory.
WARNING! If the directory you open from this menu has no files inside of it it’s probably because the malware has hidden them. You need to reveal hidden files and folders in order to be able to see them. Click here if you don’t know how to do that.
From the start menu:
- Press simultaneously the Win button together with the R button (Win+R)
- In the Run window that just opened type msconfig
- Click on the Startup tab.
This menu controls which programs are loaded when windows starts after a reboot. Disable anything that seems suspicious. Optionally you can also disable any program that you don’t need and also has a high impact on your startup time.
Feel free to write to us in the comment section with any questions that you may have. Also if we have been helpful to you please share this article to help us reach more people like you.