What is ESpeedDownload?
ESpeedDownload is a browser extension for Google Chrome that our researchers have classified as a potentially unwanted program. Hence, you ought to remove it because it does not do anything useful whatsoever. It does, however, bring an unwelcome change to Chrome. Our researchers think that this extension’s actual purpose is to promote one of several shady search engines that are capable of promoting questionable content. So we invite you to read our short description of this program and take the appropriate steps to get rid of it.
Where does ESpeedDownload come from?
ESpeedDownload comes from an unknown source. Its developers are unknown, and there is no information available about them online. Therefore, this makes this program all the more suspicious. Nevertheless, our analysts have located the website on which this program is hosted. This website is called Espeedcheck.com. It hosts downloads of many browser extensions that are very similar to ESpeedDownload and are probably up to no good as well. All of these other extensions that are featured on that website are Google Chrome exclusives and are powered by Espeedcheck.com. Moreover, our researchers suspect that this app might also be distributed via freeware bundles that would most likely be featured on shady shareware websites that make money off bundling useful applications with the likes of this particular browser extension.
What does ESpeedDownload do?
ESpeedDownload is advertised as a free global Internet connection testing program, but, in fact, it has little to do with testing your Internet’s speed. When you install this extension on your web browser, it will create a small icon on the top-right on the browser next to the settings drop-down menu. If you click this icon, then you will get redirected to Espeedcheck.com and presented with the alleged Internet speed test. The research results suggest that this speed test is not all that good. In fact, it is not good at all. A simple comparison between the results of Espeedcheck.com and Speedtest.net shows how way off Espeedcheck.com’s test results are. Therefore, we conclude that this Internet speed test is not worth your time, and you will be better off opting for another service provider.
But what has ESpeedDownload to do with testing you Internet’s speed? Apparently, this program has nothing to do with that. That speed test is web-based and does not require a browser extension to run or produce more accurate results. This extension has an entirely different job, and this job is to replace Chrome’s original homepage with its promoted one called Movix.searchalgo.com. Our researchers say that this search engine is highly unreliable since it comes from a shady background and to put it simply — it is part of a web monetization scheme. Movix.searchalgo.com’s purpose is to make money for its developers, and the only way it can do this is by injecting commercial advertisements into its search results. This can have undesirable consequences since this search engine has no mechanism to exclude the promotion of potentially malicious content. In any case, all of this search engine’s queries get redirected to Yahoo.com. So, in essence, you are using Yahoo.com with additional ads.
In conclusion, ESpeedDownload has been rightfully classified as a potentially unwanted program. It appears as if it is required to run the Internet speed test at Espeedcheck.com, but that is untrue. You can run that speed test without having this, or any other browser extension featured on Espeedcheck.com. This applications’ true intention is to generate advertising revenue for its developers at the expense of your computer’s security because there is no way of knowing whether the promoted links are genuine. Therefore, we suggest removing this program as soon as the opportunity arises.
How do I remove ESpeedDownload?
Our malware analysts have composed a manual removal guide which involves uninstalling this extension from Chrome’s list of extensions and deleting a certain file (Secure Preferences) from this browser’s directory. Take note that this file will be automatically regenerated once you launch Chrome, but the purpose of deleting it is to get rid of the modified file so that Chrome could generate a healthy one. Alternatively, you can keep the modified file, open it in Notepad and edit the strings that contain Movix.searchalgo.com’s address. However, we think that it is much simpler to delete it instead of going through the painstaking process of editing.
Remove this extension from the browser
- Launch Google Chrome.
- Press the Alt+F keys.
- Select More tools and click Extensions.
- Locate the extension and click Remove.
Delete the Secure Preferences file
- Press Windows+E keys.
- In the resulting Explorer window’s address bar type %LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
- Locate the file named Secure Preferences, right-click on it and click Delete.
- Done.
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