Hohosearch

What is Hohosearch?

Hohosearch is a prevalent browser hijacker that hijacks the user’s profile on Mozilla Firefox to be able to change the settings. Also, it usually sets itself on Google Chrome browsers without permission. In most cases, Hohosearch (hohosearch.com) replaces the default homepage, which means that you will see it each time you open your Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. It is impossible to have two homepages, as you know, so you will need to remove Hohosearch first before you set another preferred homepage. It is advisable to do that for the sake of the system’s safety too because browser hijackers not only replace homepages without permission, but might also expose computer users to potential threats. As this threat is not a regular program that can be erased through Control Panel, we suggest reading the article for more information on its deletion.

What does Hohosearch do?

Hohosearch creates the profile in %APPDATA%\Profiles the first thing it enters the system to set itself as the default homepage on Mozilla Firefox. In addition, it will hijack Google Chrome (there are versions of this threat that do not touch Chrome). At first, it seems that this search engine is a perfect tool for finding the information on the web. Also, it contains buttons that could take users to popular websites, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and eBay in no time. We agree that this is a useful feature; however, we still do not recommend keeping and using this questionable search engine. There are two major reasons why we think so. First, it has been noticed that this search engine is going to return untrustworthy search results. These search results will contain advertisements and links that have a potential of causing redirections to third-party websites. Unfortunately, only few websites promoted by a browser hijacker are harmless. In other words, you might quickly infect your computer with malware if you click on those untrustworthy search results. To be honest, it is basically impossible to say which of the search results are reliable and which are not, so it is not surprising at all that so many people cause harm to their computers if they decide to keep Hohosearch or simply do not know that it is unreliable.

We have told you that there are two reasons we do not consider Hohosearch a reliable search engine, remember? The first one has been presented in the paragraph above, whereas we will elaborate on the second one in this paragraph. Researchers working at anti-spyware-101.com have managed to find out that Hohosearch might also gather information about users day after day. It will stop doing that only if you fully erase it from the system. You should know that this threat might gather personal information (e.g. name, surname, and email address) too, so the best would be to eliminate it from the system immediately after you notice that it has applied changes to your browsers.

Where does Hohosearch come from?

Hohosearch shares similarities with hijackers from the ELEXA family, e.g. searchatomic.com and yessearches.com. In addition, it has been found that it is distributed like these hijackers too, i.e. it comes bundled in malicious installers together with freeware and shareware. Of course, we cannot guarantee that this browser hijacker is not spread somehow differently too, so you always need to be careful if you do not want to encounter Hohosearch again. Our security specialists also recommend installing security software on the system to ensure the system’s safety. The tool you use has to be reliable, so do not trust software from torrents or file-sharing websites.

How to delete Hohosearch

Hohosearch should disappear after you delete it through Control Panel and reset browsers one by one; however, we also suggest changing the profile in Mozilla Firefox to default to make sure that this hijacker is really gone. Instructions provided below this article will help you, so use them if you do not know anything about the deletion of browser hijackers. Of course, you can use an automatic tool like SpyHunter to make it disappear too. If you decide to remove Hohosearch manually, you should know that you will also have to find and erase other undesirable programs from your computer. The quickest way to do that is to use the automatic tool, but, of course, it is up to you how you do that.

Remove Hohosearch

Windows XP

1. Click on the Start button.
2. Select Control Panel.
3. Click Add or Remove Programs.
4. Select the program.
5. Click Remove.

Windows 7 and Vista

1. Open the Start menu.
2. Click Control Panel and click Uninstall a program.
3. Right-click on Hohosearch.
4. Click Uninstall.

Windows 8/8.1/10

1. Launch RUN (Windows key + R).
2. Enter Control Panel in the box and click OK.
3. Click Uninstall a program.
4. Find and eliminate the unwanted program by clicking on the Uninstall button.

Mozilla Firefox

1. Open your browser.
2. Tap Alt+H and go to Troubleshooting information.
3. Click Refresh Firefox.
4. Click on the Refresh Firefox button again.

Google Chrome

1. Open your browser.
2. Tap Alt+F.
3. Select Settings.
4. Click Show advanced settings.
5. Click Reset settings.
6. Click Reset.

Change your profile in Mozilla Firefox

1. Close your browser.
2. Tap Win+R on your keyboard simultaneously.
3. Enter firefox.exe –p in the dialog box and click OK.
4. Select the default profile from the list.
5. Mark Use the selected profile without asking at startup.
6. Click on the Start Firefox button.

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