What is Duckduckgo.com?
DuckDuckGo.com is a decent Internet search engine that has been presented as a fresh and interesting website a few years ago on various online news blogs. It is often considered to be free software that is distributed under Perl 5 license. However, some users report that DuckDuckGo.com hijacks their browsers and change your home page addresses. It is definitely a reported case that is not made up, however, the one responsible for such occurrence is not the website itself, but a browser hijacker that exploits it. If you have been infected with a browser hijacker, and you want to remove DuckDuckGo.com from your browser, scroll down to the bottom of this article.
Where does DuckDuckGo.com come from?
As far as the official website is concerned, you can obviously access it at DuckDuckGo.com. There you are offered to set the page as your default home page and default search engine. In a way, you can see that for the most part users are able to decide whether they want their home page get changed or not.
However, it is also possible for the DuckDuckGo.com setup file to come bundled with freeware or any other software. In such a case, if you accidentally install browser hijacker with a list of other applications, DuckDuckGo.com is set as your default home page behind your back, and that is something you cannot tolerate.
What does DuckDuckGo.com do?
Technically, DuckDuckGo.com is a genuine Internet search engine, and it does display relevant search results, personalizing your search. According to the creators of this search engine, DuckDuckGo.com has been created for people who are in need for a private search.
Nevertheless, when your home page is changed without your permission, it is very likely that DuckDuckGo.com is exploited by cyber criminals to collect your web browsing information, and data on your search queries. All the collected information can be used later on for marketing purposes, and it is also very possible that you could get infected with malware, as browser hijacker is usually the first step towards a dangerous malware infection.
How to remove DuckDuckGo.com?
It is possible restore your browser settings manually, but removing the browser hijacker responsible for it could be tricky. Once you have restored your browser settings, run a full system scan with SpyHunter free scanner. The browser hijacker that infected you with DuckDuckGo.com will be detected at once and you will be able to remove it automatically. At the same time you are advised to invest in a legitimate computer security program that will safeguard your system against similar infections.
How to restore browser settings
Internet Explorer
- Press Alt+T and click Manage add-ons.
- Remove DuckDuckGo from Toolbars Extensions and click Search providers on the left.
- Set a new default search engine and remove DuckDuckGo from the list. Click Close.
- Press Alt+T again and select Internet options.
- Click Use default button under General tab and click OK.
Mozilla Firefox
- Press Firefox button and go to Options.
- Click Restore to Default button under General tab and press OK.
- Click the search engine icon on the left of search box (top right corner).
- Select Manage search engines and remove DuckDuckGo from the list. Click OK.
- Press Ctrl+Shift+A and Add-ons manager tab will open.
- Disable and remove DuckDuckGo from Extensions and restart your browser.
Google Chrome
- Press Alt+F and click Tools. Go to Extensions.
- Remove DuckDuckGo from the list and click Settings on the left.
- Select Open a specific page or set of pages and click Set pages.
- Change your home page address and click OK.
- Press Manage search engines under Search.
- Set a new default search engine, remove DuckDuckGo and click Done.
tested removal of Duckduckgo.com*
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