Search.mystartabsearch.com

Posted by Lisa Blanc on September 12, 2016

What is Search.mystartabsearch.com?

Search.mystartabsearch.com is a rather questionable search tool that appears in the place of a default search engine on Google Chrome. Also, it changes the New Tab page settings, so you will see it every time you open a new tab as well. You see this questionable search engine every day not without a reason. It is very likely that you have installed the MyStartab extension from mystartab.com or another source, if Search.mystartabsearch.com has replaced the settings of Google Chrome and you see plusnetwork.com in the place of the default search engine on Mozilla Firefox. Yes, this extension is compatible with these two browsers only. As it is responsible for the presence of questionable search engines on your browsers, you need to eliminate this browser extension ASAP to undo the changes it has applied. In some cases, users decide not to do anything and keep Search.mystartabsearch.com (or plusnetwork.com) in the place of their default search tools. Of course, you are the one who can decide what to do in this case, but you should know that security specialists at anti-spyware-101.com do not recommend keeping and using these search tools. There are, of course, several reasons why they cannot say that these search engines are trustworthy. test test test

What does Search.mystartabsearch.com do?

Neither Search.mystartabsearch.com nor plusnetwork.com can be called decent search engines. Our researchers have found that they both might display the modified search results for users, so it is better to not use any of them to search for the information. These modified search results do not seem harmful at first glance; however, specialists have looked at them closer and are now sure that they might quickly redirect users to third-party websites that are not very trustworthy or even contain malware. It is evident that the developer of the MyStartab extension does not feel responsible for the safety of users’ computers, and it is clear that it has only one goal - to promote third-party websites. These modified search results is not the only problem. Research has shown that both Search.mystartabsearch.com and plusnetwork.com gather information about users. If you look closer at the information provided in the Privacy Policy, you will definitely find out that search engines that are promoted by the MyStartab extension are interested in the information about users and their activities. For example, the following details about you will be recorded if you decide to use Search.mystartabsearch.com or plustnetwork.com:

Pages views
Impressions
Clicks
Usage statistics
Demographic information
IP address
The type of browser

Unfortunately, these are not the only types of information collected. According to specialists working at anti-spyware-101.com, personally-identifiable details like your name, email address, country of origin, telephone number, and title might be recorded too if you provide this information yourself by, for example, registering for an account. Both personally and non-personally identifiable information might be shared with third parties, so if you do not wish to tell anything about yourself to third parties, you should really consider eliminating the MyStartab extension in the near future.

Where does Search.mystartabsearch.com come from?

You definitely see Search.mystartabsearch.com (or plusnetwork.com) because you have a particular browser extension installed on your PC. Even though it can be downloaded from mystartab.com (its official website), a bunch of users say that they have not downloaded this piece of software themselves, but they still see it, which suggests that the MyStartab browser extension might enter computers somehow differently too, for example, it might be spread in software bundles. According to our researchers, even though the bundling method is quite popular these days, this extension might have been installed on your PC when you clicked on a pop-up advertisement. Such ads are usually shown by adware installed on the computer. Therefore, we suggest scanning the system with a diagnostic scanner after the deletion of the MyStartab extension, especially if you remember clicking on some kind of advertisement that has appeared on your screen recently.

How to delete Search.mystartabsearch.com

In order not to see the questionable search engine from your computer, you have to erase the MyStartab extension. If you have never deleted a browser extension yourself and do not know where to start now, you should use our manual removal guide which you can find below this article. Of course, the manual method is not as quick as the automatic one, so if you want to save your valuable time, you should use an automatic malware remover, e.g. SpyHunter instead of trying to erase this undesirable software by yourself. You will have to scan your PC with the automatic tool only once.