MusicNet Start

MusicNet Start might alter your default homepage settings to place an unreliable search engine on your browser. Our researchers say the presented tool shows modified Yahoo search results and it might mean it may display additional advertising content among the search results. Such ads could be dangerous if they originate from malicious web pages or scam websites, but since we do not know where they might come from we cannot be one hundred percent sure. In any case, we recommend not to risk your computer’s safety while browsing the Internet with the unreliable search engine provided by MusicNet Start. Before you decide you could read the article first and if you come to compulsion the application is not worthy of your trust you can erase it with the instructions located at the end of the text.

To begin with, users should know the extension is classified as a potentially unwanted program. It does not say it is harmful or dangerous itself, but it suggests some of its features could act in an undesirable manner, for example, show potentially malicious third-party advertisements. As mentioned earlier, the reason we believe this might be true is because MusicNet Start provides a search engine that uses a modified version of search.yahoo.com.

We noticed that some potentially unwanted programs or browser hijackers use modified search engines to show users results injected with ads from their third-party associates so they could generate advertising revenue from the user’s clicks. The problem is, often such software creators do not take any responsibility for third-party content and to make as much income as possible they use lots of various ads and unfortunately some of them might appear to be potentially malicious. Our researchers did not notice such content while testing MusicNet Start, but there is a possibility it might show later on when the application gathers more information about the user’s interests.

Apparently, the extension can gather information about user’s browsing habits when he searches the Internet. We learned about this after reading MusicNet Start’s Privacy Policy document, and while doing so, we found rather strange statements regarding the gathering of the user’s private information too. To be more precise, the paper suggests the application can provide the user with some “mobile book address synchronization service.” Moreover, it says that “When you use MediaNetNow Desktop to call or to send Text massage to identified people, a call event or Text message event will be sent to our servers.” We did not come across such a feature, but it sounds rather suspicious that an extension providing a search tool might offer some tool for telephone addresses synchronization and could record your text messages, etc.

Furthermore, while reading the potentially unwanted program’s End User License Agreement, we also discovered there are no guarantees “THE PRODUCT WILL BE FREE FROM VIRUSES, “WORMS,” “TROJAN HORSES” OR OTHER HARMFUL PROPERTIES.” It does not mean MusicNet Start will necessarily be exposed to the mentioned threats, but apparently, there is such a possibility and users who care about their computer’s security should not take any chances with it. Especially if the extension was placed on the browser accidentally.

Currently, MusicNet Start is available both on its official website (medianetnow.com) and on chrome.google.com/webstore. However, our researchers say that besides these two channels the potentially unwanted program might travel with bundled software installers or suspicious pop-up ads and because of this it could be installed accidentally if the user does not pay a lot of attention to the installation process. If this is how you received this extension, we advise you to erase it with no hesitation. The application is compatible just with Google Chrome and the instructions located at the end of this text will show how to remove it manually. We could also suggest downloading a reliable antimalware tool and scan the computer with it. The tool should locate the unwanted extension, and all that would be left to do is click the deletion button to eliminate it.

Remove MusicNet Start from Google Chrome

1. Press Win+E.
2. Locate provided paths one by one:
   %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions
   %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Sync Extension Settings
   %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\{Profile.*}\Extensions
   %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Sync Extension Settings
   %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\{Profile.*}\Extensions
   %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions
3. Look for folders titled hajmhmmilgmcmobmkdpncpbnbhljhojb select them one by one and press Shift+Delete.
4. Find the two listed directories:
   %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Storage
   %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Storage
5. Search for the provided files:
   chrome-extension_hajmhmmilgmcmobmkdpncpbnbhljhojb_0.localstorage-journal
   chrome-extension_hajmhmmilgmcmobmkdpncpbnbhljhojb_0.localstorage
6. Mark them and press Shift+Delete.
7. Locate this specific path: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
8. Select files called Preferences and Secure Preferences separately then erase them by clicking Shift+Delete.
9. Exit File Explorer.