Hotweb360.com

Posted by Max Lehmann on February 9, 2017

What is Hotweb360.com?

Hotweb360.com is a potentially risky search engine page that you may not even notice right away in your browsers since it looks very similar to Google. Of course, this kind of resemblance is not a coincidence at all. According to our malware experts at anti-spyware-101.com, the creators do this on purpose to deceive unsuspecting computer users to believe that it is actually Google they find as their home page so they would not even think of a malware infection. However, this is indeed a browser hijacker that belongs to a family of threats that also include identical clones, such as Gogletab.com. The security-related issues with finding this hijacker in your browsers are twofold. First, this malware infection can present to you potentially harmful third-party advertisements and links leading to malicious websites. Second, it is most likely that this threat did not enter your system all alone, which would clearly mean the presence of other malware programs as well. This is why you may not be able to restore order on your system if you only remove Hotweb360.com from your browsers; you also need to hunt down all other possibly harmful programs, too. But before you jump to the end where we reveal how you can eliminate this threat, let us tell you more about this infection so that you can understand how you can infect your system with similar threats and what you can do against it. test

Where does Hotweb360.com come from?

This browser hijacker follows the tradition of most of its predecessors and spread on the web in free software bundles. This method was originally used by software developers who tried to keep their products free by bundling legitimate ad-supported programs to be able to support their work. However, it did not take too long for cyber criminals to see the potential in this and they started to use bundles as a means of distributing malware infections. This is why nowadays you need to be extra cautious every time you are about to install a software package. In a worst case scenario, it could be packed with several adware programs, browser hijackers, Trojans, backdoors, keyloggers, and potentially unwanted programs as well. Such a bundle could mean serious system security risks before long. It is also possible that your system performance will show some symptoms as certain malware, such as adware programs, may use up considerable amount of your CPU power as well as your Internet bandwidth. If you want to make sure that you computer is safe for you to use, it is important that after you delete Hotweb360.com from your system, you scan your PC with a trustworthy malware scanner tool to detect all infections on board.

It is possible to get infected with such malicious bundles after you click on corrupt third-party content, such as pop-up and banner advertisements, fake notifications, and fake buttons. You can be introduced to such content when your PC is infected with adware programs or browser hijackers. These infections may spy on you and fill your screen with customized, potentially unsafe advertisements and links. If you click on such content, you may drop a bundle of malware threats onto your machine or find yourself on a malicious website where you could easily do the same by engaging with any content. Another possibility is that you visit shady file-sharing and online gaming websites, which are mostly packed with questionable third-party contents. The advertisements on these suspicious pages can be very deceiving, too. Therefore, we suggest that you steer clear of unfamiliar websites and use only official and reputable websites to download programs and updates. If it is possible that you got infected with this browser hijacker in the aforementioned ways, we recommend that after you remove Hotweb360.com, you go on eliminating threats until your system is entirely clean. Otherwise, you will not be secure anytime your computer is on.

How does Hotweb360.com work?

Our experts have found that this hijacker is very similar to 123rede.com and 321oyun.com, which are identical clones of each other; although these search pages are filled with annoying third-party ads. This browser hijacker does not display ads on its main page. You can see the usual main search field with some logo above it, and below, eight tiny windows of popular websites serving as quick links, including Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon. Strangely enough, this infection does not open these third-party pages on separate new tabs but uses the same tab for the search as well. While these quick links seem to function just fine, we do not recommend that you use them because you can never know whether this hijacker is capable of injecting questionable third-party ads into them, which would clearly make them potentially risky.

But what we really advise you to avoid is the use of the search engine itself. Not only does this browser hijacker resemble Google, it also redirects all your queries to this well-known and reputable search engine. Nevertheless, you cannot trust the search results there either because this infection may manipulate the results by inserting third-party ads and sponsored links. You should know that this is the only way for this search engine to generate revenue for its creators; by driving web traffic to affiliated websites. However, third parties may not always be reliable parties. It can happen that cyber criminals pose as third parties in order to promote their malicious pages to lure more victims to them. If you do not wish to experience online scams first hand, lose money from your bank accounts, or let more malware infections on board, we suggest that you learn how you can remove Hotweb360.com from your computer right now.

How can I delete Hotweb360.com?

Our experts have noticed that this browser hijacker may only affect your home page settings in your Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer browsers. Therefore, it can be enough for you to restore these settings. We have prepared instructions for you if you want to stop this infection manually. If you still experience issues with this threat after you perform these steps, we suggest that you reset your browsers, which would also eliminate other potential malware threats, such as bad toolbars, ad-supported extensions, and the like. If you would like to take care of your computer and your virtual security more effectively, we advise you to install a reputable anti-malware application, such as SpyHunter, which can automatically detect and remove all existing malicious programs.

Remove Hotweb360.com from your browsers

Google Chrome

Tap Win+E.
Go to the %LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default folder.
Delete Preferences, Secure Preferences, and Web data files.
Empty your Recycle Bin.

Mozilla Firefox

Tap Win+E.
Open %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\* folder.
Edit prefs.js file.
Overwrite user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://hotweb360.com") string with a preferred URL address.
Save the file.
Close your editor.

Internet Explorer

Tap Win+Q and enter regedit. Press the Enter key.
Find HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page registry value name.
Overwrite value data "http://hotweb360.com" and with a preferred URL address.
Go to HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\{0633EE93-D776-472f-A0FF-E1416B8B2E3A}.
Overwrite "hotweb360.com" in the value data fields of these value names: FaviconURL, FaviconURLFallback, TopResultURL, and URL
Close your editor.