Search.safensearch.com

Posted by Lisa Blanc on January 20, 2017

What is Search.safensearch.com?

Search.safensearch.com can appear as your new home page and affect Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer after a browser hijacker infiltrates your system. According to our malware experts at anti-spyware-101.com, this infection can expose you to potentially harmful third-party contents, such as advertisements and sponsored links disguised as search results. This is not the only reason why the presence of this browser hijacker is undesirable and potentially dangerous. The bad news is that there could be further malware infections that came on board with this threat. Since this means multiple system security threats and vulnerabilities, we advise you to remove Search.safensearch.com from your computer as soon as possible. In fact, you should not stop at this point because as long as there is one single potential threat source on your system, you cannot be secure while your computer is on. test

Where does Search.safensearch.com come from?

Getting infected with this malware usually involves a click on a questionable third-party advertisement or a modified search results link. Although it is possible that you install this browser hijacker directly in this way, but it is more likely that you download it in a freeware bundle packed together with other malware threats, including adware programs, other hijackers, fake alerts, Trojans, and PUPs (potentially unwanted programs). Such a package installer usually offers you the opportunity to say no to certain components; however, this could be done in a misleading manner or you could only see the real content if you go for the custom installation method. If you do not uncheck the checkboxes assigned to the browser setting changes, a hijacker such as this can easily be installed without your knowledge.

In order to avoid the installation of such malicious bundles, we suggest that you refrain from clicking on random third-party ads and visiting shady file-sharing, gaming, and porn sites. Such pages are generally filled with annoying and unsafe third-party ads promoting malicious installers. One click on the wrong third-party content can result in your downloading a bundle of threats onto your machine. When you are on unfamiliar sites, it is quite easy to trigger such a drop since the page may react to any mouse click on any content really regardless of whether it is an input field (e.g., search) you click inside or an empty-looking space on the page. Of course, the same is true for fake download and next-page buttons. This is why we say that you should run a system malware scan if you want to identify all other malicious programs after you delete Search.safensearch.com.

How does Search.safensearch.com work?

When you see this search engine page in your browsers, you may not even realize that there has been a home page setting change since this page looks very similar to other, reputable search engines. In the top-left corner, you can find four main search categories, including web, image, video, and news. Right below the main search box, you can choose from a dozen languages; however, these will only change the category labels and will not influence the search results. The main difference of this search page when compared to legitimate search engines is that there is a third-party advertisement below the search box. This content could be unreliable and risky to click on. But this is just the beginning of your system security issues.

This browser hijacker may gather data about your browsing habits and activities in order to be able to customize your content. Obviously, this is not a unique feature, but it can still put your virtual world at risk since cyber crooks can use this hijacker as a platform to promote dangerous websites. This is possible because this search engine can insert potentially unreliable third-party advertisements and links among the normal search results. Unlike most of its peers, this malware infection does not redirect your queries to reputable third-party search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, it uses its own engine. Nonetheless, if you do not want to lose your money and personal information in online scams or infect your computer with more malware threats, we advise you to remove Search.safensearch.com from your system right away.

How do I delete Search.safensearch.com?

Since this browser hijacker seems to only affect your home page setting, it is enough to restore that in all your infected browsers. If you do not know how to do this, you can use our instructions below this article. The whole process should not take more than just a few minutes altogether even if you are an inexperienced computer user. Unfortunately, deleting Search.safensearch.com from your browsers may not solve all your malware issues. You can try to identify all the possible threats manually by checking the list of installed programs in Control Panel and the extension lists in your browsers for suspicious applications, but it would be more effective for you to use a reliable anti-malware program. Such a tool can automatically detect malware infections and prevent them from entering your system or erase them if your computer was already infected before installation.