Search.searchgmfs.com

Search.searchgmfs.com is an absolutely redundant featured search site again from the notorious Polarity team. While this threat cannot really be called dangerous, it can still present to you potentially unreliable third-party advertisements and links. We have seen similar as well as identical threats in this family in the past months emerging, including Search.hmylocaltransit.co and Search.searchwmtn.com. We have categorized this malware infection as a browser hijacker as it can change your homepage settings in the affected browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer). The problem is that this hijacker is not spread officially, so if you find it on board, it is quite likely that you will find other malicious threats as well since it is spread in deceptive ways. We recommend that you do not hesitate to remove Search.searchgmfs.com from your computer.

Finding a browser hijacker like this one in your browsers usually means that previously you clicked on corrupt ads or links and you either directly installed it unknowingly or dropped a bundle of malware threats, which may have contained this browser hijacker among other infections, such as adware programs, fake alerts, Trojans, and so on. It is possible, for instance, that you see a pop-up ad saying that you need to update your Flash driver but when you click to install it, you simply install this hijacker or drop a bundle in the background. You can also download questionable or downright malicious bundles when you download free software off of shady torrent or freeware pages. But you are not safe visiting other suspicious sites either, which may host lots of unsafe third-party ads, such as betting, gaming, online video streaming, and porn. This is why when you find this hijacker in your browsers, it is essential that you do not just simply delete Search.searchgmfs.com, but scan your PC with a reliable malware scanner, too, so that you can find all possible threat sources on your system.

This featured search site does not even offer you any beneficial tools apart from a few quick links to third-party pages like Google Maps and Bing Maps. You can also use a couple of thumbnail links situated below the search field. These links also include Amazon and Gmail. You can hide or show this panel of links, which again does not make too much sense. Please note that you do not need a tool like this to have preferred websites at an easy reach. You can always use the bookmarking function of your browsers with ease and feeling secure.

The real problem comes when you actually use this search page to search the web. All your keywords are sent to its own web server and then forwarded to Yahoo. This means that this browser hijacker may inject its promoted content (third-party ads and links) into the search results pages. This way you could be exposed to potentially unreliable content. If you click on such content, you could infect your computer quite easily and you may not even notice it. Also, you may end up on a fake webshop site where you could be offered a product for a cheap price that you have been looking for. However, instead of really buying that product, you would simply share your credit card details with cyber criminals and you could lose your money from your bank account. No wonder why we recommend that you remove Search.searchgmfs.com from your computer.

This browser hijacker is known to modify your homepage settings and the default search engine as well. Therefore, the logical way to eliminate it is to modify those settings to default or other preferred ones. But we believe it is even more efficient if you reset your browsers to make sure that no other threats remain either. If you have never done this before, you will find our instructions below quite helpful. Please remember that this hijacker could be only one of many threats on your system. Leaving any harmful program on your PC could lead to further infections and exposure to dangerous web content. Thus, it may be a good time to invest in a proper anti-malware program like SpyHunter.

How to remove Search.searchgmfs.com from your browsers

Internet Explorer

1. Press Alt+T and select Internet Options.
2. Click the Advanced tab and press Reset.
3. Select the Delete personal settings checkbox and press Reset.
4. Click Close.

Google Chrome

1. Press Alt+F and choose Settings.
2. Scroll down and click Advanced.
3. Scroll down again and click Reset.
4. Press Reset.

Mozilla Firefox

1. Press Alt+H and open Troubleshooting Information.
2. Click Refresh Firefox.
3. Press Refresh Firefox again in the pop-up window.