Cactus Search - How to remove

Cactus Search is a browser extension that replaces your new tab/home page and your default search. It promises to use some of its profits to help plant trees. Unfortunately, Cactus Search has a few problems that make it seem not very trustworthy. It might be better to use a more reputable eco-search engine instead of Cactus Search.

About Cactus Search:

Classification	Browser hijacker, potentially unwanted program.
How Cactus Search changes the browser	It replaces the home page and the search engine, it changes how web search results look and it includes advertisements with the results.
Problems and issues	Some cybersecurity vendors consider Cactus Search to be a potentially unwanted program, the extension looks a lot like a browser hijacker.
How to delete Cactus Search	Uninstall it and other potentially unwanted browser extensions, use anti-malware tools (Spyhunter for PC, Combo Cleaner for Mac, etc.) to find and remove malware.

Cactus Search – search engine and browser extension

Cactus Search is a browser extension that replaces your home page and your default search engine. It includes sponsored links in the search results.

Although it makes money from advertisements, Cactus Search promises to respect the privacy of its users and to only collect aggregate data.

But some cybersecurity vendors consider Cactus Search to be potentially unwanted or even a browser hijacker. There could be a few reasons for this:

• Cactus Search uses fake ads to spread.
• The extension appears to get many of its good ratings from fake and irrelevant reviews.
• Cactus-search.com not a very reputable website, so it’s hard to verify its claims.
• The way that Cactus Search works is very similar to many browser hijackers.

Cactus Search has a few problems

The biggest problem with Cactus Search is that it shows deliberately misleading ads in order to get people to install it. It shows fake “Download” and “Play Now” buttons on certain websites. This alone makes Cactus Search very suspicious. What kind of a browser add-on needs fake ads to promote itself?

At first glance, Cactus-search.com looks like a website with an honorable goal: to plant more trees and to save rare plants. The site says that it supports the Plant for the Planet organization with a portion of its profits made from advertising. Cactus Search makes money by showing ads from Bing, Google, and Linkvertise.

However, while sites like Ecosia are well-known and pretty reputable, Cactus Search is mostly unknown. The company behind Cactus Search doesn’t have a reputation, so it’s hard to say whether it’s trustworthy and it’s hard to hold the company accountable. (Although, based on the misleading ads that it uses to promote the extension, I’d say the company is not very trustworthy).

Probably the strangest thing about Cactus Search is the reviews that this extension has collected on its Chrome Web Store page. They’re definitely suspicious and raise a few red flags (10 secrets to uncovering which online reviews are fake).

• The majority of Cactus Search’s reviews are these over-the-top positive and ultra-short “Wow!! Superb!!!!!” types. I can’t say that they’re fake, but they look fake. Especially when so many of them are posted on the same day.
• A few of the reviews are for a UK employment agency that shares its name with Cactus Search. In fact, the same exact glowing reviews for Cactus Search have been posted on the employment agency’s websites.

The Cactus Search browser extension is not related to the Cactus Search recruitment agency and the recruitment agency is definitely older. This is such a strange mixup – I wonder why the Cactus Search extension had this name chosen for it when another company was already using it.

How to delete Cactus Search

Just like with Tabsearch.net, I don’t believe that Cactus Search is deliberately malicious. But there’s just no reason to use it over a more reputable website, such as Ecosia.

You can undo the changes that Cactus Search made to your browser by removing the extension. The instructions can be found below.

It might also be worth it to check your computer with an anti-malware program, such as Spyhunter for Windows, Combo Cleaner for macOS, or others. This is especially relevant in case you didn’t install Cactus Search intentionally, as a couple of the extension’s reviewers hinted happened to them.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove browser extensions

TopRemoving Cactus Search from Chrome

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Google Chrome window. Select “Settings”.
  
• Click “Extensions” on the left menu bar.
• Go through the extensions list and remove programs you do not need, especially similar to Cactus Search. Click on the trash bin icon next to Cactus Search or other add-ons you want to remove.
  
• Press on the “Remove” button on the Confirmation window.
  
• If unsure, you can disable them temporarily.
  
• Restart Chrome.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

If you are still experiencing any issues related to Cactus Search, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on Chrome’s menu button (three horizontal lines) and select Settings.
  
• Scroll to the end of the page and click on the Reset settings button.
  
• Click on the Reset button on the confirmation box.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.

How to remove Cactus Search from Microsoft Edge:Top

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Microsoft Edge window. Select “Extensions”.

• Go through the extensions list and remove programs you do not need, especially similar to Cactus Search. Click on the "Remove" icon next to Cactus Search or other add-ons you want to remove.

• Press on the “Remove” button on the Confirmation window.

• If unsure, you can disable them temporarily.

• Restart Microsoft Edge.