I wrote this article to help you remove Search.searchetan.com. This Search.searchetan.com removal guide works for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Search.searchetan.com is an entertainment platform, combined with a search engine. The website is dedicated to television, cinema, and news. Search.searchetan.com comes with an embedded toolbar which has its own search field. The toolbar links to a selection of popular websites, including AMC, Netflix, ESPN GO, Hulu, and a couple of news portals. In addition, there is a local weather report. If you are intending to use the services of Search.searchetan.com, you should hear us out. The platform has a poor security reputation. This is because it is linked to a browser hijacker. The covert program uses the domain as a gateway to the browser. It conducts malicious tasks which expose the system to security risks and compromise people’s online privacy.
Upon entering the computer, the clandestine program infiltrates the browser. It alters the custom and the DNS settings. Your homepage and default search engine will be reset to Search.searchetan.com. Once these changes are appended, there is no going back. The hijacker will keep on changing your settings every time you try to revert back. It is not advised to use your browser for search purposes while the Search.searchetan.com hijacker is active on your system. The sinister program will insert sponsored websites amid the regular results to your queries. This is part of the scheme. The concept behind the furtive tool is to promote third party content in exchange for a certain payment.
The promotional campaigns are much more effective when they acquire the user’s full attention. The way to do this is by generating advertisements. The ads take many forms, like banners, in-text links, coupon boxes, freebies, interstitial, transitional, contextual, inline, and floating windows. They often cover the active browser and explorer windows. You will have to deal with constant interruptions. A direct consequence of the high ad flow is a decline in the computer’s speed and overall performance. This happens because the tasks of the Search.searchetan.com hijacker use up a high amount of CPU. Your machine will become sluggish, often freeze, and even crash on occasion.
To get people interested, the shady program focuses on bargain shopping deals. The advertisements suggest exclusive offers and discounts for a wide variety of consumer goods. A lot of the proposed deals are not just chosen by accident. To elaborate, the Search.searchetan.com hijacker has tracking capabilities. It studies people’s behavior and gets to know their interests. Your search terms and your online purchases will tell the rogue program which items would be suitable for you. In time, it will become apparent that the ads focus on products you purchase and look up online. As enticing as the offerings may be, keep in mind that the windows redirect to unconfirmed platforms.
The software behind Search.searchetan.com is a service of Eightpoint Technologies Ltd., a Cayman Islands company. The entity provides the service under a license agreement to Polarity Technologies Ltd., a company from Limassol, Cyprus. The terms of use and end user license agreement include a disclaimer of warranties and a limitation of liability statement. According to the terms set forth, users are not entitled to compensation in the event of a security compromise. The Search.searchetan.com hijacker may not damage the operating system and the files on the hard drive, but it poses a personal security threat. The sinister program monitors users’ browsing sessions and collects the information they enter into their browser. The owners of the hijacker can sell your private input to cyber crooks.
Knowing the distribution patterns of the Search.searchetan.com hijacker can help you protect your machine from it. The shady tool prefers to travel with other applications inside a bundle. Freeware, shareware, and pirated utilities are all common hosts. The carrier offers the additional program as a bonus. You have to find where it is mentioned and deselect it. Check all options in the course of the installation. The other propagation vector the secluded program uses is spam email campaigns. The hijacker hides behind attachments, listed as important documentation. The sender behind the bogus message can falsely introduce himself as a representative of a reputable organization in an attempt to lead you astray. Before tending to an email, check the available contacts to confirm its authenticity.
Search.searchetan.com Removal
Before starting the real removal process, you must reboot in Safe Mode. If you are familiar with this task, skip the instructions below and proceed to Step 2. If you do not know how to do it, here is how to reboot in Safe mode:
For Windows 98, XP, Millenium and 7:
Reboot your computer. When the first screen of information appears, start repeatedly pressing F8 key. Then choose Safe Mode With Networking from the options.
For Windows 8/8.1
Click the Start button, next click Control Panel —> System and Security —> Administrative Tools —> System Configuration.
Check the Safe Boot option and click OK. Click Restart when asked.
For Windows 10
Open the Start menu and click or tap on the Power button.
While keeping the Shift key pressed, click or tap on Restart.
Here are the steps you must perform to remove the hijacker from the browser:
Remove From Mozilla Firefox:
Open Firefox, click on top-right corner , click Add-ons, hit Extensions next.
Look for suspicious or unknown extensions, remove them all.
Remove From Chrome:
Open Chrome, click chrome menu icon at the top-right corner —>More Tools —> Extensions. There, identify the malware and select chrome-trash-icon(Remove).
Remove From Internet Explorer:
Open IE, then click IE gear icon on the top-right corner —> Manage Add-ons.
Find the malicious add-on. Remove it by pressing Disable.
Right click on the browser’s shortcut, then click Properties. Remove everything after the .exe” in the Target box.
Open Control Panel by holding the Win Key and R together. Write appwiz.cpl in the field, then click OK.
Here, find any program you had no intention to install and uninstall it.
Run the Task Manager by right clicking on the Taskbar and choosing Start Task Manager.
Look carefully at the file names and descriptions of the running processes. If you find any suspicious one, search on Google for its name, or contact me directly to identify it. If you find a malware process, right-click on it and choose End task.
Open MS Config by holding the Win Key and R together. Type msconfig and hit Enter.
Go in the Startup tab and Uncheck entries that have “Unknown” as Manufacturer.
Still can not remove Search.searchetan.com from your browser? Please, leave a comment below, describing what steps you performed. I will answer promptly.