Search.searchcpn.com

Browser hijackers are prevalent threats bothering users who surf the web on a daily basis. Search.searchcpn.com is one of these browser hijackers even though it presents itself as a legitimate search tool. It has been placed under this category because of its ability to alter all the settings of browsers without users’ knowledge. In this sense, it acts exactly like other browser hijackers developed by Polarity Technologies Ltd, for instance, search.yourmapscenter.com, search.youremailnow.com, and search.searchdp.com. Unfortunately, a number of users do not notice the new changes applied instantaneously. Others just do not really care which search engine to use to search for the information. It is, of course, up to you what to do with Search.searchcpn.com, but keep in mind that this dubious search tool might cause serious problems which are not so easy to solve.

Once Search.searchcpn.com enters the computer and is successfully installed on it, it immediately resets the most important parameters on Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. Specifically speaking, it hijacks homepages on all these web browsers by setting Search.searchcpn.com, which, unfortunately, is not so easy to take off. This means that Search.searchcpn.com will show up immediately when you open your web browser. It should be noted that it is not the only drawback of this dubious search provider. Research has clearly shown that this nasty browser hijacker also collects information about users. On top of that, even though it should only show Yahoo! search results, in reality, its search results page consists of both decent and sponsored search results. The main problem is associated with these search results whose purpose is to take users to third-party websites and thus increase the traffic rate of certain third-party websites. According to specialists at pcthreat.com, the presence of these sponsored search results shows that Search.searchcpn.com could have been released to generate revenue for its author only, so it is not worth expecting much from it even though it has buttons allowing users to open couponsimplified.com, retailmenot.com, groupon.com, and news.mynewswire.co with the click of a button and returns search results. Actually, according to security specialists, it is quite dangerous to use Search.searchcpn.com because it can quickly redirect to untrustworthy third-party websites too. Users risk ending up on dubious pages with every click on a sponsored search result shown by Search.searchcpn.com. These promotional links are extremely hard to recognize, so sooner or later people keeping and using this suspicious search tool will click on an untrustworthy link and end up on a dubious page.

Being a pesky browser hijacker, Search.searchcpn.com can access information about users’ devices, their online habits and behavior, and, finally, their search queries. It not only checks this information, but also records it and then shares it with third parties. Unfortunately, research has shown that it not only records non-personally identifiable information, e.g. geographic location and details about a user’s computer. The Privacy Policy document of Search.searchcpn.com tells users that search queries that may contain personally-identifiable information will be recorded too. The recorded information will be used to improve the service, research and analyze how users use the service, and, finally, present users with appealing offers, programs, features, etc. Even though users are told that this information will be, generally, used to improve their experience, it is quite risky to allow Search.searchcpn.com to record data because it will be shared with third parties and might even end up in the hands of bad people. The only way to stop it is to delete it from all browsers.

You might wonder why you see Search.searchcpn.com set on your browsers. We believe you that you have not set it on browsers yourself. Browser hijackers usually arrive on computers in software bundles. They, of course, do not travel alone. Free applications come together with these threats in most cases. Most probably, Search.searchcpn.com has been set on your browsers after you have downloaded and installed freeware too. Install new programs with great care in the future and do not forget to acquire and install a security application on your computer.

You need to remove Search.searchcpn.com no matter that its deletion is quite complicated. Follow the step-by-step manual removal guide which you will find below this article. It will help you to delete Search.searchcpn.com quickly and easily. If you do not find the manual removal method easy at all, let an automatic malware remover, such as SpyHunter, to take care of Search.searchcpn.com for you.

Delete Search.searchcpn.com manually

Internet Explorer

1. Press Win+R.
2. Type regedit and click OK.
3. Open HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and right-click on Start Page.
4. Select Modify and delete the Value data.
5. Click OK.
6. Go to HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\{0633EE93-D776-472f-A0FF-E1416B8B2E3A}.
7. Delete Value data fields of the following Values (right-click on the Value, select Modify, delete data from the Value data field, and click OK):

• FaviconURLFallback
• FaviconURL
• TopResultURL
• URL

Mozilla Firefox

1. Open the Windows Explorer (Win+E).
2. Type %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles in the URL bar and press Enter.
3. Locate a folder containing the prefs.js file inside.
4. Right-click on this file, select Open with, and choose Notepad.
5. Delete user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http:// Search.searchcpn.com "); from this file and save the changes.

Google Chrome

1. Press Win+E.
2. Open %LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default.
3. Delete Preferences, Web Data, and Secure Preferences from this folder.