What is SurFilters?
SurFilters is a browser extension that can allegedly filter search engines not to display any inappropriate content, such as pornography-related websites, as results. The problem is that our malware researchers have found that this tool installs its search engine as your home page, new tab page as well as your default search engine. This search engine has proved to be potentially unreliable and thus may pose a threat to your system security. Although this particular potentially unwanted program, or PUP, may only affect your Google Chrome browser, it may enter your computer in a free software package that could contain more serious threats as well. According to our malware researchers, you should remove SurFilters if you do not want to face additional security-related issues. Please keep reading for further details.
Where does SurFilters come from?
This useless program is promoted through its official webpage, surfilters.com, and the Chrome web store as well at chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/surfilters/ngpdbjphnondjffhicbejfcghnhinheh. The official page looks very simplistic with rather limited information about what this extension can actually do. If you click on the “Click to Install” button, you can directly install this application after agreeing to some potentially unfortunate permissions, such as setting its search engine as your default search provider. According to the statistics on the web store page, only 14 users have installed this PUP. Obviously, there has to be another way for it to spread more widely.
We have discovered this PUP traveling in bundles as well. A lot of PUPs are spread this way and some of them even legitimately. However, this extension may be found in bundles that could pack malware infections like browser hijackers, adware applications, Trojans, and fake warnings. You can drop such an unfortunate package onto your system if you click on the wrong content while surfing the web. For instance, you may land on a suspicious file-sharing page in an attempt to download a free file or program. However, when you click on one of the seemingly four download buttons -- out of which three could be fake and belong to third parties --, you download a malicious bundle instead of a standalone file. But you may also accidentally or knowingly click on unsafe third-party ads that may trick you into doing so. In any case, if you may have installed such a bundle lately, we suggest that you find a decent online malware scanner and scan your system to see how serious your malware situation is. Of course, you can start cleaning up the mess by deleting SurFilters from your browser.
How does SurFilters work?
This application seems to only work in Google Chrome, which means that all your other major browsers, including Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, are not affected by it. This PUP supposedly filters out inappropriate content from the main search engines' results. The only issue here is that this extension hijacks your browser and sets its promoted search engine as your home page, new tab, and default search provider, which makes you quite exposed to its potentially unreliable content. It is possible, for example, that this PUP displays third-party advertisements that could be risky to click on since cyber criminals might be behind them. The same is true for the search results.
If you run a web search using this extension, you may land on a manipulated Google search results page that could display questionable affiliated advertisements and links leading to their sites. Unfortunately, such an extension can easily be exploited by cyber crooks who can use it to promote their corrupt contents. It is quite dangerous to click on ads and links coming from criminals because you could end up on malicious websites and before you know it, you could reveal your banking details to such crooks. This could clearly lead to your losing money from your bank accounts and other misuses of your personal information if you happen share this on fake websites. There is only one thing you can do to avoid such unfortunate scenarios: You need to delete SurFilters from your system.
How do I delete SurFilters?
Since this PUP only affects your Chrome browser, you can simply reset it to make sure that no undesirable applications remain that could be associated with your browser. But in this case it may also be enough if you remove this annoying extension using your browser's settings menu. We have included a guide below if you want to take care of this PUP yourself. Please understand that by removing SurFilters you may not make all your system healthy and safe again. This could be only the tip of the iceberg, or should we say, the “malware-berg.” This is why we recommend that you go on hunting down questionable and harmful programs until the last one of them is erased. If you do not feel capable or skillful enough for this task manually, we suggest that you use a proper anti-malware program that can automatically eliminate all potential threats from your PC or filter them out even before they could sneak onto your system.
Remove SurFilters from your browser
- Tap Alt+F and choose Settings.
- Click on Extensions on the left.
- Find the extension you want to eliminate and click on the trash can on its right.
- In the pop-up, press Remove.
tested removal of SurFilters*
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