Trovi search virus - How to remove

Basically, Trovi is a general name for a browser hijacker that can infect web browsers and redirect them either to www.trovi.com or www.trovigo.com. For that reason, this infection often is called Trovi.com hijacker, or Trovigo.com virus.

If after hearing the phrase “computer virus”, the very first thing to pop into your mind is probably a destructive infection that will wipe all of your data or ruin your hardware for good. Trovi virus is not like this at all. In fact, it won’t cause you actual damage, such as lost files or damage components of the computer. However, the way it is distributed and the methods used to make money are really deceptive and wrong, to say the least. That is why we categorise it as malware and recommend to stay away from it.

As consequence of the Trovi virus infecting your computer, the homepage on one or several of your web browsers can be changed to either trovigo.com or trovi.com and if you didn’t do it by yourself, that means the web browser is affected by this hijacker and you should take action right now in order to solve the problem. Trovi does seem to be associated with some kind of adware, which probably means that it rubs elbows with some actual malware infections – the longer you keep it installed, the more chances it has to expose you to dangerous content.

Trovi can be removed with a combination of manual and automatic methods:

Trovi classification	Adware Browser hijacker
Problems with Trovi	Unwanted installation Difficult to remove (in some cases) Hijacked browser settings Private data collected No useful functionality
Remove the Trovi hijacker	Remove malicious files manually or using antivirus tools for Mac, SpyHunter for PC) Uninstall Trovi and restore browser settings
Avoid malware	Use reliable antivirus tools Backup your system Install software updates regularly Avoid shady websites

Traits of Trovi search virus

Trovi installation

There are 3 main reasons why Trovi search is considered to be an infection and not a legitimate service:

• Hijacking homepage;
• Hijacking new tab;
• Displaying advertisements.

So if it happens so that your computer is infected with this browser hijacker, you will eventually experience all of them. Now you might be wondering how Trovi search virus might have reached you and infected your web browser. The answer is plain simple – this product is distributed bundled to other free (or paid, but usually free) software that can be downloaded from the Internet. Probably the biggest distributors of this virus are BitTorrent, some versions of VLC player and Cheat Engine. You can even find evidence to prove this fact by looking at the privacy policy of BitTorrent software:

Some of the web search services provided in BitTorrent Maelstrom software are provided by Trovi Search and powered by Trovi search partners. For information on the web search services data collection, please visit http://info.trovi.com/privacy, and the search provider’s privacy policy, as applicable

So while installing any of those 3 applications or other free software downloaded from popular downloads websites like softonic.com or download.com, you are likely to be offered to install an add-on to your web browser which is supposed to enhance your web searches and overall web browsing experience. This “enhancement” is the Trovi search virus. By the way, this offer usually is checked as a default option, so if you just run through the installation without making any changes, it will be automatically added to your web browser. This is because the distributors of the bundling application might be paid for each successful installation of the Trovi virus, so they try to make sure that more people do install it – even if accidentally.

By the way, this infection is distributed not only by various freeware – other browser hijackers promote it as well. It is clear that the Trovi search hijacker is affiliated with www-searching and citypage.today viruses, as well as other minor malware infections.

There are two websites that can take over your web browser – it’s either trovi.com or trovigo.com. They look the same, however, the first one is way more popular. It has estimated monthly web traffic of around 1.6M, though it used to be 7M, so its popularity is definitely waning. Almost all traffic is direct and that means it is definitely a browser hijacker, as users are forced to pay a visit to this website when they open their web browser.

Trovi.com and Trovigo.com also differentiate by countries they are targeting. Trovi.com gets most of its traffic from the US, Canada, and India, while trovigo.com is most popular in Japan and Brazil.

Consequences of using Trovi

So what’s the worst about this infection? First of all, you will be forced to use it for web searches. Even though Trovi employs the Bing search engine to deliver results, it can not be trusted. First of all, your searches will be tracked and information about you stored – this way your private information can be leaked. Moreover, various advertisements will be exposed to you all the time. Depending on your age, location and interests, various pop-up and in-text advertisements will follow you while browsing the web.

Users of various web browsers are complaining about problems regarding the Trovi hijacker. It can affect Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and default Windows web browsers (Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge). Even though there are instructions on the trovi.com website on how to disable it, they are not always effective and users struggle to get rid of the search virus.

Easiest method to remove Trovi hijacker from web browser

Regardless of the fact that the Trovi virus is caused by the installation of a browser add-on, it might be not enough to simply disable particular add-on and restore original browser settings since some files of Trovi can be stored on the computer. For a regular computer user, it might be too difficult to detect and remove those files manually, thus we advise to get some help from anti-malware software, such as SpyHunter for Windows or Combo Cleaner for Mac. Use either of those programs to scan your system and all malicious files associated with Trovi.com will be detected and removed.

To finally eliminate this infection from your computer, you will have to restore the settings affected by Trovi manually. You can do that by following the instructions provided below this article.

The fact that your computer got infected with this malware indicates that the protection level of the system is low. To avoid cyber-security problems in the future, we highly recommend you to keep your computer protected with reliable anti-malware software, regularly make backups and store them on an external drive, to update your software with the latest security patches, and don’t visit websites that look unreliable.

Automatic Malware removal tools

How to kill Trovi search virus

How to remove Trovi.com using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Trovi search virus 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 Trovi.com . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Trovi search virus 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 Trovi.com from macOS

Delete Trovi search virus from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the Trovi.com 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 Trovi search virus 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 Trovi search virus, 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 Trovi search virus 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 Trovi search virus 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 Trovi.com, 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 Trovi search virus 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 Trovi search virus, 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 Trovi search virus from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Trovi.com 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 Trovi search virus, 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.

Manual removal