Linkey virus - How to remove

Linkey virus is a browser plugin that was created by Aztec Media Inc. Although the program claims to be a useful application and make your browsing much more productive by providing quick links to popular websites, games, etc., the truth is it brings more harm than use. Linkey virus can affect Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

Once inside the program changes your homepage to linkey.project.com. The website has a search bar, however, if you try to make a search using it, you will notice that it displays numerous sponsored websites in your search results. Moreover, the program tracks your browsing history and records what websites you are visiting as well as what searches you are making. This may lead to passing this information to the third parties and involving you into some marketing related projects. What is more, every quick link to games and popular websites can actually lead to visiting malicious websites or install potentially unwanted programs.

Usually computer users install Linkey virus by themselves without knowing that. Since it comes bundled to many free software, many users can skip it and allow installing it without noticing. To avoid similar problems in the future, it is recommended to be more careful with what you are installing to your system and follow the installation steps more carefully. Also make sure you choose a Custom installation which will enable you to see all the bundles, like Linkey virus, and refuse their installations.

If your system has already been affected, beware that it can lead to a lot of adware and other useless programs. For this reason it is recommended to remove Linkey virus once you notice its activity. Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove programs list and uninstall anything related to Linkey virus from there. Some versions of this hijacker install software that blocks browser settings from changing. To identify them, scanning with Spyhunter or other reputable antispyware tool might be useful. Then you can uninstall the extensions and reset settings in your browsers.

How to remove Linkey virus from Internet Explorer (older versions):

1. Click on the arrow on the right of the search box;
2. Do the following: on IE8-9 choose Manage Search providers, on IE7 click on Change search defaults;
3. Remove linkey.project.com from the list.

How to remove Linkey virus from IE 11:

1. Click on the Settings icon (top right)->Manage Addons;
2. Select Search Providers;
3. Change the default search engine to Bing or Google;
4. If any of these search providers is not available, follow “Find more search providers” in the bottom of the screen and install Google.

How to remove Linkey virus from Firefox:

1. Enter “about:config” in url bar. This will open settings page;
2. Type “Keyword.url” in the search box. Right click and reset it;
3. Type “browser.search.defaultengine” in the search box. Right click it and reset it;
4. Type “browser.search.selectedengine” in the search box. Right click it and reset it;
5. Type “browser.startup.homepage” in the search box. Right click it and reset;
6. Search for “browser.newtab.url”. Right-click and reset. This will make sure that the search page won’t launch on every new tab;
7. If the settings revert and scan with anti-malware programs are clean: close Firefox, open file explorer and enter %AppData% in the address bar. Enter user.js in the search box. If this file exists, rename it and start Firefox again. You will have to repeat the steps above.

How to remove Linkey virus from Google Chrome:

1. Click on the 3 horizontal lines icon on the browser toolbar;
2. Select Settings;
3. Select Basics ->Manage Search engines;
4. Remove unnecessary search engines from the list;
5. Go back to Settings. On Startup choose ‘Open blank page’ (you can remove undesired pages from the set pages link too);
6. If your New Tab page is hijacked, you will have to scan with anti-malware program or use New Tab Redirect extension from Chrome Store.

Remove shortcut hijack (all browsers) (optional):

If your browser opens linkey.project.com page on startup only, try this:

1. Right click on your browser icon. Choose Properties;
2. Open Short cut tab;
3. Delete linkey.project.com part from target field.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manual removal