Play-bar-search.com

Play-bar-search.com is yet another browser hijacker that will monitor your online activity. Browser hijackers are developed to generate a financial profit for its creators. Normally, malicious infections that want to rip you off log your keystrokes and steal your banking login information. Browser hijackers do not do that. They make money through other methods, and they do not pose direct computer security threats. Nevertheless, you have to remove Play-bar-search.com from your system if you want to avoid serious security issues in the near future. Browser hijackers can be easily exploited by malevolent third parties, and so you have to prevent that from happening.

This browser hijacker seems to be part of the ever-growing browser hijacker family that lately has been terrorizing innocent users worldwide. The most annoying thing about these infections is that users often do not understand how they manage to enter their computers. Normally, computer infections slither into target systems surreptitiously. However, the thing with Play-bar-search.com and other similar applications is that users trigger the installation in one way or the other. There are several ways for a browser hijacker to enter a target system, and our security researchers have looked into most of them.

According to our research lab, Play-bar-search.com usually gets distributed via pop-up ads that are generated by potentially unwanted programs. It means that users click random pop-ups that appear on their screen (probably accidentally), and those pop-ups are embedded with outgoing links that either trigger the download process or redirect users to the websites that distribute this browser hijacker. How come these pop-up ads appear on your screen? The sad fact is that such pop-ups are generated by unwanted programs that have been installed on your computer in advance. This means that you must have set up a number of unwanted applications on your system without even realizing it.

Potentially unwanted software can be installed on your computer when you download freeware apps from third-party sources. For instance, if you are looking for some video converter application, you may find one on a file-sharing website. When you click to download such an application, you have to keep in mind that the installer file probably bundles several applications together, and as you install the program you want, you will also set up a few other unwanted applications on your PC, too. To avoid that, you have to follow the steps in the installation wizard carefully.

Unfortunately, most of the users fail to deselect the unwanted applications, and they get exposed to other third-party programs that could seriously jeopardize their system security. These unwanted programs display pop-ups that distribute Play-bar-search.com, and if you happen to add this search domain to your browser, then you can be sure that your online activity will be constantly monitored, and you will have to deal with a big amount of commercial content, some of which could even prove to be malicious. Of course, we are not trying to say that Play-bar-search.com wants to infect you with malware.

However, in order to make some money for its creators, the program needs to promote third-party content. The content will be customized based on your web browsing history. A customized content looks more attractive, and you may feel more inclined to click the displayed links. By clicking the given links, you generate money via the pay-per-click system. Now, you get nothing in return for that, and there is no saying where those outgoing links might lead you. If the browser hijacker ends up being exploited by cyber criminals, it becomes a medium in malware promotion or distribution, and that is really dangerous.

In other words, you should not take these risks. You have to remove Play-bar-search.com from the system to prevent even more dangerous programs from entering your PC. We have come up with the manual removal instructions that will help you delete the infection from your browser. However, after that, be sure to run a full system scan with a licensed security application. You need to be sure that you have terminated all the potential threats. And sometimes there are programs that resist being removed, so you need to take up all the means necessary to ensure your system’s safety and stability.

How to Remove Play-bar-search.com

Internet Explorer

1. Press Win+R and the Run prompt will open.
2. Type regedit into the Open box and click OK.
3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.
4. On the right pane, right-click the Start Page value.
5. Select Modify and change your startup page address.
6. Click OK and exit Registry Editor.

Firefox

1. Press Win+R and type %AppData%.
2. Click OK and go to Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[Unique Mozilla user ID].
3. Open the prefs.js file.
4. Delete this string: user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://Play-bar-search.com");
5. Save changes and close the file.

Chrome

1. Press Win+R and type %AppData%. Click OK.
2. Go to Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default.
3. Delete these files: Preferences, Secure Preferences, and Web Data.