Gamesearchtab.com Hijacker - How to remove

Did Gamesearchtab.com unexpectedly show up in your browser? Game Search (not to be confused with Games Search for Chrome™) is a browser add-on that could be considered a hijacker: once installed, Game Search replaces your home page with Gamesearchtab.com, where it links to related clickbait sites and promotes Yahoo search. Gamesearchtab.com logs people’s browsing activities and may use the collected data to improve advertising.

Gamesearchtab.com in short:

Classification	Browser hijacker, adware.
How Game Search changes the browser	It replaces the new tab with Gamesearchtab.com, it promotes related sites that show a lot of ads.
Problems and issues	Gamesearchtab.com is not helpful when finding games, it promotes advertising sites, it logs search queries and other usage data.
How to remove Gamesearchtab.com	Uninstall the Game Search extension from your browser, use anti-malware apps (Malwarebytes, others) to find and remove potentially unwanted items.

What is the problem with Gamesearchtab.com?

Gamesearchtab.com is not very helpful

Gamesearchtab.com is a website that replaces your browser’s new tab once Game Search is installed.

In theory, there’s nothing very wrong with that. There are plenty of browser add-ons that change your browser’s home/new tab page. Gamesearchtab.com even offers a few features, like a weather widget.

But Gamesearchtab.com is just not great. It’s supposed to be about games, right? It links to only two stores, Steam and Play Store, ignoring many popular game clients.

And don’t get me started on Gamesearchtab.com’s Popular Games section – those categories are often just wrong.

It hijacks web search

Another annoyance with Gamesearchtab.com is that it doesn’t allow users to change the search engine used by the search box in the middle of the page. That search box only goes to Yahoo.com.

The searches go through Query.gamesearchtab.com first, which allows for a couple of things:

• the operators of Gamesearchtab.com could change the search engine without warning – they could even open different sites depending on the query,
• each search query goes through Gamesearchtab.com, allowing the site to log it.

Gamesearchtab.com logs search queries

According to Gamesearchtab.com’s privacy policy, the site may collect users’ search queries, IPs, what other extensions they have installed besides Game Search, and some other technical data.

This site inserts itself between you and your search engine without providing any value, then collects potentially personal information to use for targeted advertising.

Needless to say, it might be best to avoid using the search bar on Gamesearchtab.com.

It displays ads

Gamesearchtab.com is made by Polarity Technologies Ltd. aka Eightpoint Technologies. It’s not a coincidence then that the Game Search new tab is so similar to Myjobpartnertab.com, Hconverterpros.com, Searchsmg.com, Hyourfastemailnow.com – they’re all made by the same company. That’s Polarity Technologies Ltd. aka Eightpoint Technologies.

It’s also not a coincidence that on Gamesearchtab.com, below the search box, are links to Totalvideos.tv, Myemailcentral.com, Nationalweatheragency.org. All these websites are by Eightpoint Technologies and all of them show excessive ads. While the Gamesearchtab.com new tab doesn’t show ads, it does link to advertising websites that make money for its owners.

How to remove Gamesearchtab.com from your browser

Uninstall the Game Search extension. The instructions are below. Check the default search engine and home page in your browser settings.

To check your computer for potentially unwanted programs, extensions, and other items, scan it with an anti-malware app, such as Malwarebytes.

One thing I noticed about Eighpoint’s browser extensions is that, sometimes, they’re advertised together with search hijackers – browser add-ons that replace your search engine. If, after removing Game Search, your browser still behaves strangely, it could be that another unwanted extension was installed.

If you suspect that a browser add-on is causing problems, you can check by using private browsing. There, extensions are disabled by default, so problems caused by add-ons should disappear. If you aren’t sure which extension is responsible, simply disable your add-ons one by one. Once you remove the malware, re-enable the other extensions.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manual removal instructions

TopHow To remove Gamesearchtab.com Hijacker from Google Chrome:

• Click on the 3 horizontal lines icon on a browser toolbar and Select More Tools→Extensions
  
• Select all malicious extensions and delete them.
  
• Click on the 3 horizontal lines icon on a browser toolbar and Select Settings
  
• Select Manage Search engines
  
• Remove unnecessary search engines from the list
  
• Go back to settings. On Startup choose Open blank page (you can remove undesired pages from the set pages link too).
• If your homepage was changed, click on Chrome menu on the top right corner, select Settings. Select Open a specific page or set of pages and click on Set pages.
  
• Delete malicious search websites at a new Startup pages window by clicking “X” next to them.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

If you are still experiencing any issues related to Gamesearchtab.com Hijacker, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on a Chrome’s menu button (three horizontal lines) and select Settings.
• Scroll to the end of the page and click on theReset browser 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 Gamesearchtab.com Hijacker 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 Gamesearchtab.com, 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.

How To remove Gamesearchtab.com Hijacker from Firefox:Top

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Mozilla window and select the “Add-ons” icon (Or press Ctrl+Shift+A on your keyboard).
  
• Go through Extensions and Addons list, remove everything Gamesearchtab.com Hijacker 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.
  
• If your homepage was changed, click on the Firefox menu in the top right corner, select Options → General. Enter a preferable URL to the homepage field and click Restore to Default.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to Gamesearchtab.com Hijacker, 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.
  
• ChooseTroubleshooting Information on the Help menu.
  
• Click on theReset Firefox button.
  
• Click on the Reset 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.