Bountysearch

Bountysearch is a Google Chrome extension which is a mystery to specialists at pcthreat.com. It is hard to say how this extension works because it does not provide much information about itself. Its official website http://bounty-searches.bid/ is no longer working too, and there is only one sentence “Earn Bounties by helping people search” available as its description in the Chrome Web store. It is hard to say how this piece of software acts, our specialists say, but they have still managed to find out that this browser extension is a potentially unwanted program, or PUP. Have you discovered it in the list of add-ons too? If so, delete it as soon as possible, especially if you do not know why you have this piece of software installed. You will not regret getting rid of it because it performs only undesirable activities. Potentially unwanted programs, without a doubt, do not act like malicious applications, so Bountysearch does not act very harshly. Unfortunately, as research has shown, they might still perform activities which might cause problems and even PC issues. Therefore, they need to be deleted as soon as possible, according to experienced security specialists.

There are many untrustworthy extensions which enter PCs and then change browsers’ settings, e.g. a homepage, a default search engine, or a New Tab page, but the Bountysearch extension is not one of them. It will not set a new URL on your browsers, but it will still modify their settings. Although your preferred page will stay in its place, your all searches will be redirected through Yahoo! after the installation of Bountysearch and, because of this, you might see the modified search results. Most probably, Bountysearch gets the advertising revenue for promoting the Yahoo! search tool. Also, third parties might pay it money for driving traffic to their websites. Users are the ones who visit those websites. Specifically speaking, they are redirected to them after clicking on modified search results they see, but, of course, the author of Bountysearch will not share the revenue with them. At first glance, clicking on modified search results does not look like an activity that can cause trouble, but, according to security specialists, the chances are very high that one day they will take you to untrustworthy third-party pages. We call pages untrustworthy when they promote untrustworthy software, contain links opening bad third-party pages, or, for example, try to extract personal information about users. Believe us; there are so many untrustworthy pages out there, so the chances to end up on them sooner or later are quite high. Bountysearch might contribute to this, so you should erase it from browsers as soon as possible.

Remove Bountysearch not only because it will redirect your all searches through Yahoo! and might display the modified search results. Specialists at pcthreat.com say that you should also do that because this suspicious extension might collect information about users as well. Its official website does not work anymore, so we cannot access its Privacy Policy document and list all the details it records. We can only tell you that it might collect both non-personal and personal details about you, your activities, and your interests. If this recorded data ever ends up in the hands of cyber criminals, privacy-related problems might emerge. This will not happen to you only if you erase the undesirable extension fully from your computer. Once you are done with it, install security software for protecting your PC from future threats.

Although it is possible to get Bountysearch from the Chrome Web store (as has been mentioned, it has an official website too, but it is already down), it seems that it can enter computers illegally too because users do not stop complaining that Bountysearch has illegally entered their systems. According to specialists, it is very likely that it is spread in software bundles. We have two pieces of advice for you if you wish not to end up with potentially unwanted software ever again. First, enable a security application on your computer. Second, download software from trustworthy websites and choose Advanced installation options when installing it. This will allow you to see all the programs that are going to be installed on your PC, and you could prevent undesirable ones from sneaking onto your computer. To be frank, bundling is not the only method that might be used to distribute this Google Chrome browser extension. Malicious software active on the system might automatically open websites with warnings too – they try to scare users into downloading the browser extension. If users click Download, they get Bountysearch and do not even know that it is not a trustworthy piece of software.

No matter what the story behind the appearance of Bountysearch on your computer is, go to delete this extension as soon as possible because it is known to be a potentially unwanted program, and it does not act beneficially at all. Use our removal guide to get rid of it easier, but do not worry if you find this removal method too complicated – it can be deleted automatically too.

How to delete Bountysearch

Google Chrome

1. Start Google Chrome.
2. Tap Alt+F.
3. Click More Tools.
4. Click Extensions.
5. Select Bountysearch and click the Trash button.
6. Click Remove.