Shipment Tracker Hijacker - How to remove

If you noticed that your browser has changed its default page to search.hshipmenttracker.co, it’s been hijacked by Shipment Tracker. Shipment Tracker is a browser extension which is considered to be a browser hijacker and a potentially unwanted program (PUP). It monitors users’ search queries, forces them to use its favored search engine, and profits from ads injected into the search results. Antivirus programs consider the Shipment Tracker installer to be adware.

Distribution

Developed by Eightpoint Technologies, Shipment Tracker is almost not any different from all the other extensions by the same company, like Search.heasyconverter.co, Search.hearthandsatellitemaps.com, or Search.hthereadinghub.com. The extensions have different names, but their new tab pages are the same: a search box and a few links in the top toolbar.

This must save Eightpoint a lot of efforts in development and allow them to quickly release and start promoting very many extensions. Some of them will fall flat, others will amass a lot of users and be active for years.

Eightpoint Technologies can be installed in a few different ways:

• Adware distributes browser hijackers like Shipment Tracker. Adware are programs which, once installed, show advertisements. This can be mild, like a bit too many ads or an occasional pop-up. Adware can also be severe, making browser windows and tabs open periodically, and pop-up ads advertise random products — Shipment Tracker being one of those products.
• Organic searches can lead people to find Shipment Tracker on their own. This is unlikely and rare, but possible.
• Freeware bundles often include browser hijackers as promoted additions. If you ever notice additional offers in an installation of a program, or software appearing without your knowledge, it might have been hidden in the installer of another program. Like adware, bundling is occasionally used to spread malware.

Effects of Shipment Tracker

First, some settings are edited by Shipment Tracker when it’s installed. It replaces the new tab page with search.hshipmenttracker.co which includes a search box and a couple of links to useful websites. The extension does not look like much, but a lot of antivirus programs are alerted by it, mostly calling it adware. Here is the VirusTotal page for the Internet Explorer installation file. Don’t be surprised that search.hshipmenttracker.co works on IE — in the US (and Shipment Tracker almost entirely affects people from the United States of America), Internet Explorer is still used by 14.8% of Windows 10 users.

The Shipment Tracker extension is not really a virus that could steal information, or break files. But it is still harmful. It takes over the browser in order to be able to show ads to its users. The search engine that Shipment Tracker uses is replaced with Yahoo’s engine which allows the developers of Shipment Tracker to make money off the ads shown to you.

For the ads to be effective, Shipment Tracker collects information about the people who are using it. So, location, devices, all the search queries can be shared with advertisers to enable them to more accurately predict which ads would most likely cause you to spend money.

To be clear, these ads are the ones that show up in the Yahoo search results. Sometimes there is only one, other times there are ten. They look just like real search results, only the start and end of the list of ads are marked. It’s very easy to miss the ads and get frustrated when you can’t find relevant results.

This affects different browsers to a different extent (though Yahoo seems to be one of the worst) — you should try them all and pick your favorite, instead of being forced to use one by Shipment Tracker.

All the ads might be okay if Shipment Tracker was offering good-quality free services, but it does not. All that Shipment Tracker does is put a couple of links to shipment tracking-related websites. If people need links to certain websites, they can pin them to their new page them themselves, or they can save those sites as favorites. If people want to use Yahoo as their search engine, they can set it in their browser settings.

How to remove Shipment Tracker

If the site has asked you to allow notifications, you can block them in the browser settings. Similarly, to remove the extension, you need to access your browser settings. The exception is Internet Explorer, which requires to go to the Control Panel to get rid of the extension.

If you don’t remember installing Shipment Tracker, or if it was suggested to you without you searching for it, it’s possible that you already had adware installed before Shipment Tracker. If you’re seeing pop-ups and new tabs opening on their own, it’s almost certain that aggressive adware is infecting your machine. Scan it with powerful antivirus software, like Spyhunter.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Uninstall Shipment Tracker

How to remove Shipment Tracker using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Shipment Tracker Hijacker 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 Shipment Tracker . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Shipment Tracker Hijacker 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 Shipment Tracker from macOS

Delete Shipment Tracker Hijacker from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the Shipment Tracker 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.

TopHow To remove Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker, 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 Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker 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 Shipment Tracker Hijacker, 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.