Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker - How to remove

Searchmine.net is a questionable search engine and a browser hijacker. It functions as a search engine, but is of inferior quality to almost any legitimate search site. Moreover, Searchmine.net comes with the sort of malware that makes this unwanted search hijacker nearly impossible to remove. If your browser is suffering from Searchmine.net, time to take some antivirus measures, because your computer might be infected.

Searchmine.net uses webcrawler.com, which has its own problems, or other search engines, like opti-page.com. Like most browser hijackers, Searchmine.net injects a lot of ads into the results and profits from exposing people to those ads. Unlike most browser hijackers, this one is not an extension, but a setting on your browser which points it to a website called Searchmine.net.

Problems with Searchmine.net

Browser hijackers are the type of malware that seek to control your browsing and lead you to see certain websites. The vast majority of hijackers just try to make some money by displaying ads and collecting information about everything that you do online.

At first glance, the search page of Searchmine.net is functional, though it has too many ads. The ads are displayed before the search results, which makes searching for accurate results quite frustrating and time-consuming.

Privacy is a concern, too. If you read the privacy policy of Searchmine.net, you can see all the information that is collected for the benefit of behavioral advertisement. This is a problem for two reasons:

1. Searchmine.net does not offer a useful feature.
   Nowadays we pay for free software be exposing ourselves to ads and being tracked by advertisers. Searchmine.net wants all the rewards of advertisement without doing any work: no interesting content, no valuable functionality. That’s dishonest and makes me wonder about the other ways that Searchmine.net is exploiting people.
2. Searchmine.net is not trustworthy.
   Our private data, if it’s going to be tracked, should be stored with someone who we know isn’t going to sell it to online scammers for use in spam and phishing attacks. Our private information could be very useful to criminals, and it’s important that it doesn’t end up exposed. Well, the people behind Searchmine.net have demonstrated that they’re willing to work with scammers when they allowed their product to be promoted with malware.

WeKnow.ac is a hijacker that’s remarkably similar to Searchmine.net, as well as Search.stosgame.com, and is not unique at all. Many scammers online infect people’s computers secretly, make their software complicated to remove, and profit from showing ads to unwilling people.

How the infection is distributed

Searchmine.net is generally promoted in bundles. Whether you are downloading a generic optimizer, an unknown media player, or even well-known software from an unofficial download source, you risk Searchmine.net and other malware infecting your device. Bundling is generally something to be very suspicious of because so few legitimate programs use it. In contrast, it’s hard to find a virus or a PUP that isn’t bundling something with itself. It’s so easy to abuse and trick people to install something they didn’t want. The problem for Searchmine.net is that some people have been unable to free their browser of it — some malicious files on the infected computer prevent it.

Free programs try to earn money through their distribution, which is why they bundle additional applications. Since they’re usually paid for each installation, they have an incentive to make it difficult for you to avoid installing the additions. This results in the offers being difficult to spot and being agreed to by default.

Not just simple free programs, but real malware promote Searchmine.net. If you download what you believe to be a real software update, an alarmist antivirus program, or some other application that tried to convinced you that it is important, it might just be fake — a virus, using another product’s name to look legitimate. It includes Searchmine.net which is then set in your browser as the default search engine.

The malicious programs are encountered usually by people falling for malicious ads and being forwarded to websites that display fake warnings and host viruses. This can also be the result of adware. If your computer is infected with adware, it’s probably already hijacked your browser to be able to open new sites, redirect pages, show excessive pop-ups.

How to remove Searchmine.net

Whatever malware has infected your computer, it likely needs to be removed for Searchmine.net to be removable. You can do that manually, by checking your list of installed programs and finding the responsible one. It can be helpful to supplement this with an automatic scan using a powerful antivirus program — just to make sure that you’ve removed all the malicious files. Spyhunter (for Windows), or Combo-Cleaner (for Mac) should be able to detect the problem if your current antivirus tool can’t.

Now that your computer is free from viruses, the removal of Searchmine.net should go smoothly. Remove this URL from your default search engines by modifying the settings of your browser. The detailed guide below shows how you can manage your search engines.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove Searchmine.net from Mac

How to remove Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker 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 Searchmine.net, 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 Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker from Google Chrome on Mac:

• Open Chrome browser.
• Enter in the url field “chrome://extensions” address and hit Enter.
• Find Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker 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 Searchmine.net, 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 Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker 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 Searchmine.net Browser 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.
• 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 Searchmine.net Browser 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.
• 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.

Remove Searchmine.net from Windows

TopHow To remove Searchmine.net Browser 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 Searchmine.net, 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 Searchmine.net Browser 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 Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker, 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 Searchmine.net Browser 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 Searchmine.net Browser 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 Searchmine.net, 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.

How to remove Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Searchmine.net 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 Searchmine.net Browser Hijacker . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Searchmine.net 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.