How to remove Hao123 toolbar?
What is Hao123 toolbar?
Hao123 toolbar is a browser hijacker. It can be installed together with freeware or shareware applications. Once it is in your computer, you will see it the same moment because Hao123 makes visible changes. First of all your home page and your search pages will be changed to its own. Each search you will do from address bar or search box will cause you to use Hao123 website.
Although Hao123 toolbar might be quite irritating for some of us, it is not highly dangerous. This browser hijacker does not install additional malware to computer. Alas it is quite tricky to get rid of it. A simple uninstall procedure is not enough since some of its settings stay in the system and continue to redirect a user to unwanted web pages.
If you have problems getting rid of Hao123 toolbar, cannot reset web browser‘s default settings, such as search engine and home page, we recommend to complete step by step removal instructions:
How to remove Hao123 from IE:
- Open IE and go to ‘Tools‘ → ”Manage Add-ons’.
- Choose ‘Toolbars and Extensions’ and uninstall everything related to Hao123 from the list: Hao123 toolbar, UrlHelper Class, etc.
- Choose ‘Search Providers’ → choose ‘Bing’ search engine and make it your default search provider. Additionally, select ‘Web Search’, click ‘Disable suggestions’ to disable it.
- Go ‘Tools’ → ‘Internet Options’ and select ‘General’ tab. Click ‘Use default’ or enter your own website name, google.com or other instead of searchqu.com. Finally, click ‘OK’ to save the changes.
How to remove Hao123 from Mozilla Firefox:
- Open Mozilla Firefox, go ‘Tools’ → ‘Add-ons’.
- Choose ‘Extensions’ → ‘Hao123‘ Toolbar and click ‘Uninstall’.
- Go ‘Tools’ → ‘Options’. Finally, reset the startup homepage or change it to google.com instead of Hao123 under the ‘General’ tab.
How to uninstall Hao123 from Google Chrome:
- Click on the icon ‘Customize and control Google Chrome’, select ‘Options’.
- Choose ‘Basic’ Options and change Google Chrome homepage to google.com or any other browser and then click the ‘Manage search engines…’ button.
- Choose ‘Google’ and make it your default search engine.
- Finally, select ‘Web Search’ from the list and remove Hao123 by clicking the “X” mark.
Hao123 toolbar is Dangerous
Hao123 toolbar is a parasitic Browser Hijacker Hao123 toolbar may show numerous annoying advertisements Hao123 toolbar logs your internet browsing history Hao123 toolbar will replace (hijack) your browser homepage Hao123 toolbar may spread additional spyware Hao123 toolbar violates your privacy and compromises your security
for Hao123 toolbar detection
Note: Spyhunter trial provides detection of parasite like Hao123 toolbar and assists in its removal for free. You can remove detected files, processes and registry entries yourself or purchase a full version.
Hao123 toolbar screenshots
Manual Hao123 toolbar removal
Important Note: Although it is possible to manually remove Hao123 toolbar, such activity can permanently damage your system if any mistakes are made in the process, as advanced spyware parasites are able to automatically repair themselves if not completely removed. Thus, manual spyware removal is recommended for experienced users only, such as IT specialists or highly qualified system administrators. For other users, we recommend using Spyhunter or other malware and spyware removal applications found on 2-viruses.com.
Remove these Hao123 toolbar files:
It is impossible to list all file names and locations of modern parasites. You can identify remaining parasites, other Hao123 toolbar infected files and get help in Hao123 toolbar removal by using free Spyhunter scanner. It comes with free real-time protection module that helps preventing Hao123 toolbar and similar threats.
Hao123 toolbar is classified as a Browser Hijacker, which means its parasitic damage payload consists of hijacking your browser homepage, error page, or search page with its own, mostly a commercial site of its creators, forcing you to accumulate force hits to a particular website to make it more popular or by using pay-per-click sites to earn money.
The easiest way for a Browser Hijacker such as Hao123 toolbar to infect your computer is to exploit certain ActiveX controls and other security holes in your Internet Explorer browser. By browsing insecure websites on the internet, users may encounter various pop-ups, which secretly install Browser Hijackers like Hao123 toolbar on your computer once clicked upon.
As soon as Hao123 toolbar completes its operations, the overall browser stability and performance severely degrade, making it nearly impossible to surf the web normally.
followed the above instructions but still cant get rid of it
hitesh : which browser is still affected?
Same as hitesh. I use Mozilla. I tried what you said but without success.
Thanks.
Siri : go to about:config and search for hao entries Or contact Helpdesk and they will provide custom fix.
I found a link on Yahoo which got rid of hao123 by going into the registry.
Open start menu and type “regedit”
Then open edit tab.
Look for all files/references to hao123 and delete. But take care not to delete anything else only references to hao123. Deleting anything else could cause system instability.
The above worked for me in Chrome and the troublesome hijack browser thing disappeared. Before I did this I tried to delete via control panel Add/Remove Programs but it was hidden and wasn’t listed. I wouldn’t have even known it was in Chrome if I hadn’t tried to open a new browser tab (Cntrl + T). Each time I opened new tab the damn thing kept appearing instead of the usual new tab default page. I might run Malware scan and AVG or Spybot too just to make sure all remnants are removed.
Hi,
I tried your method to remove hao123 but in vain. I am using IE9. Please advise. Thanks.
@Sabah Kid
It worked for me, thanks a lot! C:
Here is how I finally replaced hao123 with google.com for my Opening/Home Page:
- Click on the icon ‘Customize and control Google Chrome’ (the three small horizontal bars in the top right corner of your page).
- Go to Settings.
- Go to “On startup”.
- Hover your cursor over the unwanted Url (probably hao123) until the “x” appears. Click “x” to remove it from the list.
- Then…and this was what made all the difference in my case…TYPE IN “google.com” or whatever Url you want to take over and be your new Opening/Home Page in the “Enter Url…” box. I tried this a half dozen times with no success by copying and pasting from the address bar the Url I wanted to take over and be my Opening/Home Page. That didn’t work for me. The only thing that worked was literally TYPING IN the Url as simply as “google.com” (without the ” ” marks, of course).
- Click “OK”, “Apply” or whatever to set the new Url as your new Opening/Home Page and close the page.
- Click on your browser icon to see if your new Opening/Home Page reset has worked. If it has and the Opening/Home Page you wanted to open opens, GREAT! If it doesn’t, good luck and keep trying. Something is bound to work eventually.