What is Search.searchdp.com?
If you see Search.searchdp.com in your browsers when you open them, you can prepare for some unfortunate surprises because apart from being infected with a browser hijacker, you may also find other malicious programs on your system. While many users think of random search engines showing up in browsers as a totally innocent thing, our malware experts would like to warn you that even such a seemingly harmless infection may put your system security at risk. You may be exposed to unreliable third-party content that could cause further infections or redirections to websites that are set up by cyber criminals with the only intent to scam you out of your money. So, if you would like to clean your PC of all possible malware threats, let us show you where to start. We suggest that first of all you need to remove Search.searchdp.com and then, you can go on eliminating all other infections. But before you dive into the cleansing process, let us tell you more about this browser hijacker and why it can be a bad idea to leave it on board.
Where does Search.searchdp.com come from?
According to our malware experts at anti-spyware-101.com, this malware infection is yet another creation of the same team that floods the web with similar and identical browser hijackers that include Search.searchwatchos.com and Search.searchlivesp.com. We have seen dozens of these infections emerging in the past months and they just do not seem to stop coming. The reason is that there are still plenty of users who fall for the basic tricks, such as clicking on unsafe third-party content. Of course, such content can be very misleading or downright deceiving. No wonder really that criminals can fool unsuspecting users.
There are basically three ways for you to end up with this browser hijacker in your browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer. First, it is possible that you want to install free software or download free files (e.g., movies) and you land on an unfamiliar file-sharing page where clicking on the download button results in your downloading a third-party installer that is indeed a bundle of malware threats in addition to your targeted file. But ending up on such a page holds further threats to you because it may also host a number of traps in the form of third-party advertisements. If you were to click on these deceiving ads, you could also drop such a package onto your PC. The same is true if you have infected your computer previously with adware. This infection can show you a flow of questionable third-party ads that could either drop infections or take you to sites that would at some point result in the same. If you want to see clearly, we recommend that you use a reliable malware scanner that will identify all possible threats on your system after you delete Search.searchdp.com from your browsers as a start.
How does Search.searchdp.com work?
Similarly to its predecessors, this browser hijacker has the usual characteristic fake toolbar at the top with the search tool and a number of quick-link buttons to generally preferred sites, such as Local Weather, News, Gmail, Facebook, and Google Maps. It is important for you to know that you can easily set up your own bookmarks bar using the built-in function of your browsers, which is totally risk-free. So why would you use a questionable tool instead? It is also essential for you to know that the weather widget these hijackers use is a page filled with potentially unreliable third-party ads. You can easily click on corrupt content if you are not careful on that page. Therefore, we advise you never to use it and find a service on the web that is totally trustworthy.
Below the main search field, you can see a panel that you can hide or show by clicking on the “Hide” or “Show” links respectively. This panel contains several quick-link thumbnails leading to tax-related sites, such as TurboTax (turbotax.intuit.com) and H&R Block (hrblock.com) as well as other popular sites, including Facebook, Yahoo, and VirusTotal. While these promoted sites are mostly reputable ones, you may never be sure whether this malware infection injects its affiliate ads into these pages or not. Nonetheless, the most unreliable feature is the search engine itself. It seems that this hijacker can modify the search results and thus present you with a manipulated Yahoo search results page. Landing on this page could make you feel like you are viewing a reliable one but we must tell you that these results could contain questionable third-party ads and links. If you click on such content, you may be taken to malicious websites or drop infections onto your machine. This is why it is important that you remove Search.searchdp.com from your browsers.
How to delete Search.searchdp.com
Our malware specialists say that this malware infection seems to only affect your home page settings; therefore, it is sufficient to reset those in your infected browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer. Please use our guide below if you need assistance with this process. Hopefully, you understand now that removing Search.searchdp.com may not necessarily make your whole system clean. We recommend that you go on eliminating potential threats until you find them on board. If you do not think you can do this manually, we suggest that you use a malware removal program, such as SpyHunter to do all the security-related work automatically so that you can simply enjoy surfing the web without the fear of letting more threats on board.
Search.searchdp.com Removal from Browsers
Mozilla Firefox
- Tap Win+E to launch Windows File Explorer.
- Find the “%AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{Unique Mozilla user ID}” directory.
- Open prefs.js in a text editor (Notepad).
- Modify the user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://search.searchdp.com/") string with a URL address you like.
Google Chrome
- Tap Win+E to launch Windows File Explorer.
- Find the “%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default” directory.
- Delete Preferences, Secure Preferences, and Web Data files.
- Empty the Recycle Bin.
Internet Explorer
- Tap Win+Q and enter regedit. Hit the Enter key.
- Change “http://search.searchdp.com” value data in these registry keys:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page (64-bit)
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page - Change the value data in the following value names in “HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\{0633EE93-D776-472f-A0FF-E1416B8B2E3A}” registry key:
FaviconURL (value data: “http://search.searchdp.com/favicon.ico”)
FaviconURLFallback (value data: “http://search.searchdp.com/favicon.ico”)
TopResultURL (value data: “http://search.searchdp.com”)
URL (value data: “http://search.searchdp.com”) - Exit the editor.
tested removal of Search.searchdp.com*
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