What is Search.searchfaa.com?
Search.searchfaa.com is a featured search website that may show up in your main browsers after you install a suspicious free program. Our malware specialists at anti-spyware-101.com say that this search page is indeed the creation of a well-known company called Polarity Technologies Ltd. By "well-known" we actually mean notorious, as this team seems to be specialized on creating identical and similar browser hijackers like Search.youremailnow.com, Search.searchytds.com, and Search.hfreeforms.co. This particular feature, quick access to your e-mail accounts, is also not the first time that it has emerged; we have seen at least two previous search engines that seem to be perfect clones of this one. This hijacker actually claims that it is "all about making your email experience quicker, easier, and overall better" but this simply means that it provides you with buttons on a fake toolbar leading to web-based e-mail accounts. This you can easily have if you bookmark your e-mail accounts and display the bookmarks bar in any of your browsers. Since this hijacker may introduce you to questionable third-party content through manipulated search results, we advise you to remove Search.searchfaa.com as soon as possible.
Where does Search.searchfaa.com come from?
Such browser hijackers usually spread with questionable browser extensions that are either available for download or direct installation on their own official webpage or the Chrome web store. Well, this malware infection does have a minimalist webpage at fasteraccountaccess.com but this is a rather strange one. Actually, this page simply explains about e-mail and the different types and clients. However, what strikes you right away is that there is not one single download button or link. In other words, you cannot download or install this tool from its own promotional webpage. Furthermore, there are no legal documents linked, such as Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. These plain facts make this search page quite suspicious and you have not even heard all yet. Still, we know that this is already enough for some users to delete Search.searchfaa.com from their system.
Since this browser hijacker does not seem to spread in any official channels, it is most likely that you infect your computer with it via freeware bundles. Cyber crooks like to use this distribution method because they can reach lots of unsuspecting computer users within a short space of time. As you may assume, there are hundreds of thousands of users searching the web for free stuff like free software, free audio files, free movies, and so on. Obviously, cyber criminals saw the potential in this and started to create fake and malicious file-sharing websites where they seemingly offer the files users target; however, these are not standalone files but software packages that usually contain a couple of surprises in the form of potentially unwanted programs and malware infections (e.g., browser hijackers and adware programs) as well. We recommend that you do not use unfamiliar and suspicious websites at all because these may also promote unsafe third-party advertisements that can also drop such bundles or redirect you to malicious pages that can scam you into downloading one. All in all, we advise you to remove Search.searchfaa.com from your PC and then, run a reliable malware scanner so that you can clean your system of the detected threats afterwards.
How does Search.searchfaa.com work?
This featured search website presents to you its usual fake toolbar that has the characteristic search tool on the left, followed by the local weather widget page link and the news link (news.mynewswire.co). You need to be careful with these two pages because they may present to you potentially unreliable third-party advertisements, which could be risky to click on. Apart from these links you can also find the ones that take you to web-based e-mail clients, such as Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook as well as Facebook. You can find the same links in thumbnail forms below the main search box in the middle of the page. While these links seem legitimate, when visiting them through this hijacker, there is a chance that their third-party ads could be hijacked and that this search engine injects its own promotions to generate income. Another source for money is to manipulate the search results.
This browser hijacker first sends your search keywords to its own web server and only then to search.yahoo.com. You may not even realize this and just see that you are on a Yahoo search results page. However, this page could contain questionable third-party ads and links as well that could again be risky to click on. You may open new tabs or new windows with malicious websites or advertisements but you may also drop other infections. The worst is possible when you land on a fake online shop or any other scamming page that could steal your personal and banking details. No wonder why we advise you to delete Search.searchfaa.com from your computer.
How do I remove Search.searchfaa.com?
According to our malware specialists, this browser hijacker mainly modifies your home page settings in the affected browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome). Thus, it should be enough to restore these settings. You can do this through the browser menus or you can follow our manual instructions below. If you want to lower the risk of getting attacked by cyber criminals, we recommend that you regularly update your programs and drivers as well as that you stay away from suspicious and unfamiliar websites. Nevertheless, the best way to keep your PC secure is to install a reliable malware removal application like SpyHunter.
Remove Search.searchfaa.com from browsers
Mozilla Firefox
- Tap Win+E to open File Explorer.
- Find the “%AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{Unique Mozilla user ID}” folder.
- Open prefs.js in a text editor (Notepad).
- Replace the user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://search.searchfaa.com/") string with a home page URL you want.
Google Chrome
- Tap Win+E to open File Explorer.
- Find the “%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default” folder.
- Delete Preferences, Secure Preferences, and Web Data files.
- Empty your Recycle Bin.
Internet Explorer
- Tap Win+R and type regedit. Press OK.
- Replace the value data of “http://search.searchfaa.com” in these registry keys:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page (64-bit!)
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page - Replace the value data in the following value names in“HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\{0633EE93-D776-472f-A0FF-E1416B8B2E3A}” registry key:
FaviconURL (value data: “http://search.searchfaa.com/favicon.ico”)
FaviconURLFallback (value data: “http://search.searchfaa.com/favicon.ico”)
TopResultURL (value data: “http://search.searchfaa.com”)
URL (value data: “http://search.searchfaa.com”) - Close your editor.
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