Firesear.ch Redirects - How to remove

Firesear.ch is a malicious site that takes over web browsers and forces people to use it to search the internet. It doesn’t appear on its own; if it showed up in your browser, then it’s likely that a malicious browser add-on or application was installed on your device.

It’s worth noting that Firesear.ch is different from Firesearch.com (this site seems to no longer work).

In addition, there’s a parasite called Fireseerch.com – it is so similar to Firesear.ch that it’s not worth writing a separate post about it. What applies to Firesear.ch also applies to Fireseerch.com.

About Firesear.ch in short:

Threat type	Browser hijacker, adware.
How Firesear.ch affects the browser	It interferes with your web searches, it logs user data.
What causes browser hijackers	Malicious apps, adware bundles, deceptive ads and infected installers.
How to remove Firesear.ch from your browser	Remove malicious and suspicious apps and browser add-ons (Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, Malwarebytes, others), manually delete malicious files and review your browser settings.

What is Firesear.ch?

Advertising site

Firesear.ch might look like a search engine, but it’s actually an advertising site. The goal of Firesear.ch is to control how you search the internet. When Firesear.ch takes over your web search, it can redirect you to affiliated sites and redirect you to promoted sites.

Besides advertising, Firesear.ch can also log user data. According to its privacy policy, this data includes what sites you visit, what links you click on, what ads you see and how you react to them, what you search for online. This is a lot of data and it could include your personal information.

Firesear.ch’s privacy policy does say that before the company shares this data with third parties (advertising networks, search engines, etc.), it tries to make sure that users can’t be personally identified from their data, but it’s still risky. Firesear.ch considers login info, credit card numbers, and email addresses to be personally identifiable, but all sorts of other personal information might be included in the data collected about you, potentially including your name.

A symptom of an adware infection

Firesear.ch is very similar to Cybersearch.xyz, Chumsearch.com, and Default-search.net, as well as a few other fake search engines. It could be related to Aztec Media, a company whose sites have similarities to Firesear.ch.

If Firesear.ch is in control of your web search. it might open your results in Webcrawler.com, another questionable website. However, which sites Firesear.ch opens could depend on your location, search query, and time.

But websites don’t just randomly take over your browser. So, what allows Firesear.ch to appear on browsers and hijack their searches?

Most likely, it came with a malicious application. Here are some signs that Firesear.ch redirects are caused by more than just a browser add-on:

• The Fire Search extension is installed on multiple browsers.
• Your browsers say they’re “managed by an organization” and don’t allow you to remove some extensions.
• There are files related to Fire Search on your drive.
• Unknown applications are installed on your computer.

When removing Firesear.ch, you might need to do a lot more work than when removing a simple unwanted extension.

How to remove Firesear.ch

The Firesear.ch redirects might be caused by bad browser extensions and applications, such as SearchAppExtension or MacSearch.

Therefore, it’s important to check your computer for dangerous and unwanted apps. You can use anti-malware apps, such as Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, Malwarebytes, and others.

However, if the Firesear.ch adware has roots deep in your system, anti-malware apps might not be able to catch and remove the malware completely.

Firesear.ch offers an uninstaller of its own (though the file seems to be missing at the moment). It might not be safe to run a file offered by this website. It’s better to remove the malware yourself.

To begin with, we invite you to check our post on removing extensions when your browser says that it’s “managed by an organization”.

Remove Firesear.ch from macOS

To remove persistent threats, start by rebooting in safe mode (Support.apple.com).

Open your System Preferences:

• Users & Groups -> Login Items. Select and remove (press minus ‘-‘ at the bottom) all unwanted items.
• Profiles. Select and remove unknown and unwanted items.
• Network -> Advanced -> Proxies. Deselect unwanted proxies.

Look for suspicious files in Library/Application Support and other Library folders (~/Library/Application Support, /Library/Application Support, ~/Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchDaemons). You can open these folders by using the dialog found in Finder -> Go -> Go to Folder.

Delete files related to Firesear.ch, Fire Search, Fire Seerch, and files whose preview shows suspicious sites. But be careful, because these folders also hold a lot of important files.

At the bottom are the instructions for removing browser extensions and reviewing (and changing, if needed) browser settings. Remove Firesear.ch and other unknown and unwanted add-ons.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Restore browser settings

How to remove Firesear.ch Redirects from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Firesear.ch Redirects and other suspicious extensions.
  
• If your homepage was changed, click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences and choose General tab. Enter preferable URL to the homepage field.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings(older versions) If you are still experiencing any issues related to Firesear.ch, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Reset Safari…
  
• Select which options you want to reset (usually all of them come preselected) and click on the Reset button.
  

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

TopHow to remove Firesear.ch Redirects from Google Chrome on Mac:

• Open Chrome browser.
• Enter in the url field “chrome://extensions” address and hit Enter.
• Find Firesear.ch Redirects on the extensions list and click on the recycle bin icon next to it.
• Click on 'Chrome' button at the top left corner. Select 'Preferences' on a drop-down menu box.
• Find 'Search' options on Settings tab. If your search engine is changed, click 'Manage Search Engines' and set your preferred search engine.
• On the same page find 'Show home button' checkbox and change your homepage.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to Firesear.ch, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• On the 'Preferences' menu window, scroll down to the bottom and find 'Reset settings' button. Click it.
• Confirm your selection and click 'Reset' on the following window.

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

How To remove Firesear.ch Redirects from Firefox on Mac OS:

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Mozilla window and select the “Add-ons” icon (Or press cmd+Shift+A on your keyboard).
• Go through Extensions list, remove everything Firesear.ch Redirects related and items you do not recognise. If you do not know the extension and it is not made by Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Oracle or Adobe then you probably do not need it.
• Enter “about:preferences” in URL bar and hit enter.
• Open Search settings tab.
• If your search engine is changed, click 'Default Search Engines' and set your preferred search engine.
• If your homepage was changed, click on the Firefox menu in the top right corner, select Preferences-> General. Enter a preferable URL to the home page field.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to Firesear.ch Redirects, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Mozilla Firefox window. Click on the Help button.
• Choose Troubleshooting Information on the Help menu.
• Click on the Refresh Firefox button.
• Click on the Refresh Firefox button on the confirmation box. Mozilla Firefox will close and change the settings to default.

If the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program to identify malicious entries.

How to remove Firesear.ch Redirects from Microsoft Edge:Top

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

• Select all malicious extensions and delete them.

• Click on the three-dot menu on the browser toolbar and Select Settings

• Select Privacy and Services and scroll down. Press on Address bar.

• Choose Manage search engines.

• Remove unnecessary search engines from the list: open the three-dot menu and choose Remove.

• Go back to Settings. Open On start-up.
• Delete malicious search websites at Open specific page or pages by opening the three-dot menu and clicking Delete.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to Firesear.ch, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings

• Click on Edge's menu button and select Settings. Click on the Reset Settings button on the left.
• Press the Restore settings to their default values option.

• 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.