Safestsearches.com

Has your default homepage changed to Safestsearches.com all of a sudden? You must have been infected by a browser hijacker because this program modifies your browser settings without your permission. The ugly part of this scheme is that it requires your permission to get installed on your computer. So it means that it could not have entered your system if you had not allowed it to. Of course, we are sure you had no idea of the hijacker’s real intentions; otherwise, you would not have allowed it to slither into your system. Whichever it might be, the bottom line is that you need to remove Safestsearches.com immediately to restore your browser back to normal.

It does not really matter which browser you use because this hijacker affects all the major browsers in the market. The moment you get infected with it, your default homepage and search engines will be changed to Safestsearches.com, and even if you were to use some other search engine for your web search, the hijacker would still collect information on your web browsing habits via tracking cookies. Thus, as long as you have this program on your computer, you can be sure that you will always be monitored by a third party. That does not sound assuring, right?

What’s more, Safestsearches.com is a dead giveaway that there is something fundamentally wrong with your system’s security. The hijacker cannot be distributed via the official homepage because it simply does not have a direct source. However, it employs third-party applications to spread it around, and it usually spreads through third-party pop-ups that are displayed on affected computers by third-party software. Some of the programs that are known to be part of this distribution network include TermTrident, SwiftSearch, InteliTerm, and others. All of them are created by ClientConnect Ltd. We know that this company was responsible for created Snap.do, Trovi Search, and many other browser hijackers that drove users insane several years ago.

Why do browser hijackers do that? The answer is simple: money. Luckily, these programs do not steal your banking login and password information because they are not that sophisticated. Instead, it makes you work for it by clicking the links it promotes. For instance, Safestsearches.com will redirect your web search to customized Bing results. It does not mean Bing has anything to do with this browser hijacker. It simply uses the popular web search provider to make itself look more reliable.

What’s more, the customized search results will be modified according to the monitoring data this hijacker has collected about you. So there is a good chance that the information will be related to your likes and preferences. When something is related to the things you like, there is a bigger chance you will be eager to click it. With each click you make, Safestsearches.com makes money via the pay-per-click system. Unfortunately, you get nothing for doing everything, and the situation may even grow worse. For instance, some of the links you click might be embedded there by unreliable third parties. Since the hijacker does not review the link content, even cyber criminals could embed links to their websites, and you might end up visiting a few.

If that happens, it is very likely that you will get infected with a Trojan or some other dangerous program. Then you can be sure that your money will be stolen, and your system may experience an ultimate crash. Thus, even though the browser hijacker itself to does not intend to infect you with malware, there is a possibility it could be used by cyber criminals for malware distribution, and you need to avoid that.

To protect your PC from harm, remove Safestsearches.com right now. You can do that manually, and we have prepared the manual removal instructions below this description. If you think that you cannot find all the potential threats by yourself, you can rely on an automated antispyware tool.

Acquire a legitimate application that will scan your system and will remove all the potential threats automatically. What’s more, if you keep your security tool updated, it will also protect your PC from similar intruders in the future, and you will be able to breathe a sigh of relief.

How to Remove Safestsearches.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. Right-click the Start Page value on the right.
5. Select Modify and change your homepage address.
6. Click OK.

Chrome

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

Firefox

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