Spinyon Hijacker - How to remove

Spinyon, a browser extension made by Webcoapps, causes search redirects to Yahoo.com. It might have been installed without you even noticing, together with a few other adware infections. Although the harm that Spinyon causes is minimal, it’s best to remove it as soon as you discover it.

In short about Spinyon:

Classification	Browser hijacker.
How Spinyon changes the browser	Makes web search results return in Search.yahoo.com, reads the search history and browsing history.
How browser hijackers get installed	Pushed by or bundled with other adware, promoted by dishonest ads.
How to remove Spinyon	Uninstall all suspicious browser extensions, scan your device with an anti-malware program (Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, others).

What is Spinyon?

Spinyon is a browser hijacker. It sneaks onto your browser and makes some unhelpful changes to it.

Specifically, Spinyon changes your search settings – the settings that manage your default search engine. Spinyon changes that to Feed.spinyon.com, which takes your search queries and then makes Search.yahoo.com return your search results.

Basically, after Spinyon is installed on your browser, your searches go to Yahoo. Other than that, Spinyon is pretty invisible and you might not even realize that it’s installed.

While it’s installed, Spinyon can read and log your search queries and browsing history. This data is useful for targeting ads to your interests.

Spinyon is made by Webcoapps, the same company that created SearchAholic, Searchaize, SearchConverter, and a few other browser hijackers. Yahoo browser redirects are a pretty common problem and Webcapps’ hijackers definitely contribute to that.

How Spinyon gets installed

Spinyon can be installed from Install.spinyon.com, which shows deceptive webpages like the “Download Ready” one in the illustration for this post. The reason it’s deceptive is that Install.spinyon.com is shown as an ad on certain file download sites. So, people who are expecting to download a specific file are confronted with that Download Ready page. Some of them don’t realize that this is an ad for Spinyon, so they just click on the Download button.

Spinyon can also come bundled with other browser hijackers. It can be offered seamlessly as the next installation step for an earlier browser extension, tricking people into installing multiple browser extensions at once. Alternatively, Spinyon could come in an adware bundle.

Looking at web analytics, people who visit Spinyon.com are likely to also visit some other Webcoapps sites. This means that, if you have Spinyon installed on your browser, you might also have SearchOpedia, Sealoid, Booster Search, or another hijacker.

To avoid accidentally installing malicious browser extensions, check that they:

• have a reputable developer (not true for Spinyon),
• ask for reasonable permissions (Spinyon wants to change your default search engine, which is very common for browser hijackers),
• have honest reviews (despite having over 20,000 users, Spinyon has no reviews and no ratings – that is very suspicious).

How to remove Spinyon

Scan your computer with an anti-malware tool, like Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, and other programs. An anti-malware scan will show you what (if any) malicious programs there are on your computer. Then, you can remove them with the anti-malware program or by yourself.

One way to uninstall Spinyon (and other unwanted extensions) is to right-click its icon in your browser’s top right corner (it’s a striped letter ‘S’) and to choose the “Remove” option. The same for all the other browser extensions that you want to remove. Some developers try to hide their extensions by using transparent icons, but you can still click on them and see the extension’s name.

If you can’t see the extension icons, you might need to grab the right edge of the URL bar at the top of your browser screen and drag it to the left to uncover the icons.

More detailed instructions for the removal of Spinyon are below this post.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove the Spinyon browser extension

TopHow To remove Spinyon 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 Spinyon 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 Spinyon 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 Spinyon, 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 Spinyon 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 Spinyon 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 Spinyon 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.