Qip.ru

Qip.ru is a Russian search engine that can appear in your Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers as your new home page and default search engine. Since it is not a dangerous infection, we have categorized it as a potentially unwanted program (PUP). This means that this PUP may cause harm to your computer indirectly, for example, through the content it shows. Keeping this application on your computer may expose you to unreliable websites. It is also possible that you do not install this PUP officially and it arrives in a bundle containing more dangerous malware infections. Therefore, it is essential that after you delete Qip.ru, you run a full system malware scan in order to identify all of the potential threats that may be endangering your computer’s health. Of course, we cannot push you to remove this useless PUP from your PC as it is totally up to you. What we can do is share our research with you to help you decide the fate of this tool.

Our research shows that this PUP mainly comes with legitimate QIP IM (Intstant Messaging) software from welcome.qip.ru/im. This means that if you install any software through that website, Qip.ru will be offered to be set as your new home page and default search engine. This search page seems to target Russian-speaking or former Soviet Union member countries, which is quite obvious from the .ru domain, the IP address 195.16.127.102 located in Moscow, Russia, and also from the statistics that show the percentage of visitors as: Russia 82.1%, Ukraine 5.8%, and Belarus 2.5%. However, since the QIP IM website may be available from anywhere in the world, chances are you can also get infected with this PUP wherever you are located. Even more so since this PUP might also be spread in bundles along with malicious software installers. That is definitely the worst that can happen to you; to download an infected bundle onto your computer.

If that ever happens to you, you should act fast before the threats ruin your browsing experience or worse, cripple your operating system. As a matter of fact, in order to avoid such bundles, you need to stay away from unfamiliar and suspicious file-sharing websites, such as pornographic, torrent, and shareware sites. You can easily land on such pages while searching for some free software or tool on the web. But you need to understand that sometimes, in the worst case scenario, the page may contain a malicious banner that can run a program code the moment it loads. This means that you do not even need to click anywhere on the page, you will be infected with malware. The most common way to get infected on these sites is to click on third-party advertisements. If you have visited such sites lately and you may have clicked on anything there, it would be best to remove Qip.ru now and check your computer for other potential threats.

If you find Qip.ru in your browsers, we advise you not to click on any content because this search page is full of third-party ads. The truth is that you are better off not trusting any of these since you can never know who the third party behind the ad is. What if cyber criminals display you misleading and customized ads for you that match your interest? Guess what could happen, if you click on just one single corrupted link. Well, landing on malicious websites is always risky, and that may easily happen in such a case. You could let more infections onto your machine but you could also get scammed in a number of other ways.

Another questionable thing about this search page is the search tool itself. It is possible that it can record your search queries and monitor your online behavior in order to show you tailored ads and links. It may also be able to modify the search results and display manipulated pages filled with affiliated third parties’ ads and links. Therefore, it is quite risky to click on anything related to this PUP. The chance is always there that you might land on an infected or fake website that is run by cyber criminals, who are experts at misleading and deceiving people to scam them out of their identity and their money. If you do not want to fall prey to such people, you should consider removing Qip.ru.

Unfortunately, you cannot eliminate this PUP simply by running an uninstaller in Control Panel because it does not have one. Instead, you need to do registry value data changes for Internet Explorer and a browser reset will do for Mozilla Firefox. Please follow our instructions carefully if you want to manually remove Qip.ru from your system. However, keep in mind that modifying the Windows Registry might lead to irreparable damage to your operating system if not done correctly. Therefore, please only use these instructions if you are confident enough regarding your experience level. Of course, there is another way to protect your PC. You can always download and install a reliable malware removal tool that will automatically clean your computer of all the infections present on board and protect it as well from future attacks. Also, remember to keep all your programs and drivers updated in order to leave fewer holes on your virtual security.

Remove Qip.ru from your browsers

Mozilla Firefox

1. Tap Alt+H and go to Troubleshooting Information.
2. Click Refresh Firefox and in the confirmation window, click Refresh Firefox again.
3. Press Finish.

Internet Explorer

1. Press Win+R and type in regedit to start up the Windows Registry editor.
2. Locate the following registry values one by one and change the value data from qip.ru to google.com or any other preferred page you want to see as your home page and search engine:
   HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main|Start Page
   HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main|Search Page
   HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main|Search Bar
   HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main|Default_Search_URL
   HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main|Default_Page_URL