MapsGalaxy Toolbar - How to remove

The MapsGalaxy Toolbar is a browser hijacker that gets installed on browsers and changes their settings. It’s often unwelcome but it can be tricky to remove.

The MapsGalaxy toolbar was created by the developers of Myway, which is why it promotes Myway.com. It also promotes Search Extension by Ask, another search hijacker.

Once installed, MapsGalaxy changes your homepage to home.tb.ask.com and default search provider to search.tb.ask.com and, due to how intrusive and annoying it is, many people immediately look for a way to remove it. In fact, many are baffled as to how MapsGalaxy appeared in their computers because they never meant to install it.

MapsGalaxy is more annoying than anything. It changes the settings of your browser, forces it to open promoted websites, and tracks your data, such as what you search for.

In this post, we will tell you why the MapsGalaxy toolbar is malicious, what consequences it can bring to you, and what the best ways to deal with the infection is. In addition to that, we will also provide you with information on how to increase the overall security level of your computer to avoid or remove viruses like this one in the future.

MapsGalaxy symptoms, harm, and removal:

Threat type	Browser hijacker, adware.
Symptoms	Pop-up and floating ads on various websites, home page hijacked by MapsGalaxy, changed default search site.
Possible harm	Malicious and bad-quality ads, poor, time-wasting map and route-planning features, search queries are monitored and don’t protect the user’s privacy.
Remove the MapsGalaxy toolbar	Manually remove MapsGalaxy and other suspicious browser extensions and toolbars, scan the computer with SpyHunter (PC) or Combo Cleaner (Mac) to remove PUPs and bundlers.

Origins of MapsGalaxy Toolbar

MapsGalaxy was released by the Mindspark Interactive Network company, which is well-known for distributing various browser hijackers. The MapsGalaxy toolbar is supposed to help you find maps online, providing you with directions, traffic info, and information about interesting locations in your local area.

Sounds like a great tool, but its implementation is lacking. It puts information into little inconvenient menus, doesn’t allow you to organize the links yourself. Some links are poorly labeled and even repeated.

In fact, the people who found this extension installed on their computers say that MapsGalaxy is not operating properly and the only thing it is good at is displaying unwanted advertisements and creating random redirects. Don’t take our word for it – some antivirus scanners consider it to be unwanted (Virustotal.com. They have also identified this toolbar as adware and suggest removing it right away.

That’s not a huge surprise considering that it was developed by Mindspark – this company is responsible for a lot of browser hijackers, such as ReadingFanatic, Pconverter.com, Taxcenternow.com, and so on. They all are very similar to each other. That makes our job a little bit easier – since we have examined a ton of such viruses, we already know what to expect and how to effectively remove them.

Problems with MapsGalaxy Toolbar

This toolbar can cause minor but unignorable damage to your browsing experience. First of all, it changes your browser settings in ways that definitely don’t help it provide you with maps or traffic information. What does MapsGalaxy need your homepage for? It could just exist in its own extension window. It certainly should not need to read your browsing history.

With MapsGalaxy, you can expect various negative effects:

• You might be exposed to excessive advertisements;
• You might experience random redirects to unwanted websites;
• Your private data (search history, browsing history) is likely to be collected;
• Other malicious applications can be infiltrated into your system.

The aim of MapsGalaxy Toolbar is to advertise to you. It includes sponsored links to your search results and displays various ads with links of them. It tracks your data in order to be better able to advertise to you.

Constant redirections are really time consuming and annoying. And if MapsGalaxy Toolbar reroutes you to some compromised website, it may result in your computer being infected with serious malware.

How Hijackers Infect Browsers

MapsGalaxy Toolbar is usually bundled with various music or video players, PDF creators, and other free programs. It’s included as an optional offer. If you do not follow the installation steps, you might easily miss the offer, as well as the option to refuse to install these additional applications that come together with the main software. In fact, you should never agree to install anything that you are not familiar with as many PUPs are easy to install but very difficult to remove. This is the easiest way to avoid any unwanted applications.

Another way that MapsGalaxy gets installed is by being advertised online. It might be advertised as another program in a slightly misleading way. In addition, it offers other browser hijackers, like Search Extension by Ask. Browser extensions are very easy to install in just a couple of mouse clicks.

To avoid browser hijackers getting installed against your will, you could use an antivirus program or an anti-malware tool with real-time protection, thus monitoring all incoming files on the go, would be especially useful because it could recognise that MapsGalaxy is not a trustworthy application and remove it before it hijacks your home page and your search. More serious threats would also be thwarted by competent real-time protection.

How to Remove the MapsGalaxy Toolbar

Even if MapsGalaxy already made it into your browser and made changes there, it can be removed manually and with the help of automatic tools.

First, scan your device with a professional and reliable anti-malware tool that can detect and remove unwanted programs and files. For example, you could use SpyHunter for PC or Combo Cleaner for Mac.

Second, manually disable or remove suspicious browser toolbars, add-ons, plugins, and extensions: not just MapsGalaxy, but any that you don’t use. This should get rid of any components that MapsGalaxy could use to return.

Automatic Malware removal tools

How to remove MapsGalaxy Toolbar using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like MapsGalaxy Toolbar install some of their components as regular Windows programs as well as additional software. This part of malware can be uninstalled from the Control Panel. To access it, do the following.

• Start→Control Panel (older Windows) or press Windows Key→Search and enter Control Panel and then press Enter (Windows 8, Windows 10).
• Choose Uninstall Program (if you don't see it, click in the upper right next to "View by" and select Category).
• Go through the list of programs and select entries related to MapsGalaxy Toolbar . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make MapsGalaxy Toolbar easier to find.
• Click the Uninstall button. If you're asked if you really want to remove the program, click Yes.
• In many cases anti-malware programs are better at detecting related parasites, thus I recommend installing Spyhunter to identify other programs that might be a part of this infection.

How to remove MapsGalaxy Toolbar from macOS

Delete MapsGalaxy Toolbar from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the MapsGalaxy Toolbar app.
5. Select it and right-click it (or hold the Ctrl and click the left mouse button).
6. In the dropdown, click Move to Bin/Trash. You might be asked to provide your login password.

TopRemove malicious extensions from Internet Explorer

• Press on the Gear icon→Manage Add-ons.
  
• Go through Toolbars and extensions. Remove everything related to MapsGalaxy Toolbar and items you do not know that are made not by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle or Adobe.
  
• Close the Options.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

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

• Press on the Gear icon->Internet Options.
  
• Choose the Advanced tab and click on the Reset button.
  
• Select a “Delete personal settings” checkbox and click on the Reset button.
  
• Click on the Close button on the confirmation box, then close your browser.
  

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

TopRemoving MapsGalaxy Toolbar 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 MapsGalaxy Toolbar. Click on the trash bin icon next to MapsGalaxy Toolbar 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 MapsGalaxy Toolbar, 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.

TopRemoving MapsGalaxy Toolbar from Firefox

• 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 MapsGalaxy Toolbar 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.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to MapsGalaxy Toolbar, 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 Reset Firefox button.
  
• Click on the Reset Firefox button on the confirmation box. Mozilla Firefox will close and change the settings to default.
  

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

How to remove MapsGalaxy Toolbar 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 MapsGalaxy Toolbar. Click on the "Remove" icon next to MapsGalaxy Toolbar 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.

TopRemoving MapsGalaxy Toolbar from Safari (Mac OS X)

• Click on the Safari menu.
• Choose Preferences.
  
• Click on the Extensions Tab.
• Click on the Uninstall button near the MapsGalaxy Toolbar. Remove all other unknown or suspicious entries too. If you are not sure whether you need the extension or not, you can simply uncheck the Enable check-box to disable the extension temporarily.
  
• Restart Safari.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

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

• Click on the 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.

On behalf of developers of MapsGalaxy Toolbar we were asked to remove this article due to false information on it. However, we feel like this post is correct and helpful to our readers. MapsGalaxy Toolbar and other software developed by Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. can be detected and recognised as viruses or potentially unwanted software by various anti-malware tools. Toolbars developed by Mindspark share same EULA (End User License Agreement) that is mislieding. It claims that this software is not an adware or malware, while there are statements that toolbars might display advertisements from 3rd parties or monetise toolbars in other ways. By definition such software is considered as an adware. All articles posted on www.2-viruses.com regarding products of Mindspark are correct.

Please notice that we are affiliated with several trustworthy anti-malware tools and information about our affiliates can be found in disclosure (see the link at the bottom of this page). Some of those tools are paid while other ones can be used for free. We provide free manual removal guides as well.