Ooxxsearch.com

Posted by Lisa Blanc on February 24, 2016

What is Ooxxsearch.com?

Ooxxsearch.com is a cleverly-branded browser hijacker that poses as a legitimate search engine. It is a terrible excuse for a search engine, and we recommend that you remove it. We regard it as a browser hijacker because of the deceptive way it is distributed and that it is set as your browser’s homepage without your authorization. This hijacker’s search function is nothing short of dreadful, and it will often display unrelated and irrelevant search results. Furthermore, its search results will include promotional links and advertisements. In short, Ooxxsearch has nothing good on offer, but if you are still not convinced, then we suggest that you read this whole article. test

Where does Ooxxsearch.com come from?

Our malware researchers at Anti-spyware-101.com have found that this particular browser hijacker was developed by Elex, a largely unknown malware developer that does not release browser hijackers all that often. Also, our researchers have found that Ooxxsearch.com is hosted on the same IP address (104.25.216.18) as didisearch.com, search2000s.com, and several other hijackers are. Therefore, the aforementioned hijackers may be referred to as clones of Ooxxsearch.

Like most hijackers this one is distributed using malicious software installers. Your computer might become infected with malware if you attempt to download something from unreliable software distributing websites. Hence, this hijacker may be one of the infections to enter your PC. Take note that as a browser hijacker it does not ask permission to become your browsers homepage.

How does Ooxxsearch.com work?

Our researchers say that this hijacker replaces the homepage of Internet Explorer and Firefox and the new tab page of Chrome; hence, the search provider is not replaced. Some users often do not pay any attention to the change and use a browser hijacker like they would use a legitimate search engine. However, as we mentioned in the introduction, Ooxxsearch.com’s search function is atrocious. It fails to relevant search results and is prone to provide you with trivial information. This is partly the result of numerous promotions and ads that this hijacker is bound to include in its search results because the ads generate revenue.

In fact, generating advertising revenue is Ooxxsearch.com’s only purpose. However, we have doubts about the reliability of its promotions since its license agreement states that “We have not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material, including computer software, made available through the websites and WebPages to which Ooxxsearch links…” Therefore, it is likely that this hijacker will promote malicious content such as adware.

We would also like to mention that this hijacker has been configured to collect information about you. Now, it does not collect personal information, such as your email address, phone number, name, surname, or anything like that. On the contrarily, it is set to gather non-personally identifiable information, such as IP address, Internet Service Provider, browsing history, search history, and so on. This information is used to tailor the ads, but it does not necessarily improve the search results, and we believe that the collected information is misused.

How to remove Ooxxsearch.com

In conclusion, Ooxxsearch.com is a browser hijacker that only poses as a legitimate search engine for the purpose of generating adverting revenue for its owners. It is set to secretly enter your PC via malicious installers and replace the existing homepage with its address. Furthermore, it can collect information about you that is used to customize the ads, but that is not an improvement you could capitalize on. Therefore, you have to remove Ooxxsearch.com if you want to get your old homepage back. Moreover, there are several ways you can do this. You can opt for automatic removal with an antimalware program or you can do it manually using our instructions below. So do not hesitate to take action and stay secure.

Manual removal

Google Chrome

Press the Windows+E keys to open Windows Explorer.
Enter C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default in the address box.
Delete Secure Preferences, Preferences, and Web Data files.

Mozilla Firefox

Press the Windows+E keys to open Windows Explorer.
Type C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles in the address box and enter the randomly named folder (e.g. zzx2krkp.default-1431425175768)
Search for the file named prefs.js and open it with Notepad.
Locate and Delete user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://Ooxxsearch.com/");

Miscrosoft Internet Explorer

Press the Windows+R keys to open Run.
Enter regedit in the window and click OK.
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer \Main
Then, look for Start Page on the right side of the window and double-click it.
Replace the Value data with your preferred address and click OK.
Close Registry Editor.