by Peter Baltazar
Yahoo search engine is one of the most popular and totally legitimate search engines. It is placed at 4th in the list of top searches in the category of search engines after Google, Bing, and Baidu.
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At times you might have noticed that your Chrome browser’s default search engine has been changed from google.com to search.yahoo.com without your permission. It usually happens when some web extension or application got hold of your browser’s settings.
In this guide, we would talk more about Yahoo Search and how to remove its unintentional redirection caused by browser malware.
What is Search.yahoo.com?
Search.yahoo.com is the URL of the Yahoo’s search engine. Using search.yahoo.com does not bring any harm to your device. However, many users are unintentionally redirected to search.yahoo.com, while they are searching on Google.com. This redirection is carried out through the malware known as Browser Hijacker or Browser Virus.
What is a Browser Hijacker?
ABrowser Hijacker,commonly known as the redirect Virus,is a malicious program that gets an entry on your web browser through various means and infiltrates with browser settings, without user permission to promote the fake search engines or the affiliated web pages. Since users do not willingly install them, such hijackers are often considered as Potentially Unwanted Programs or Applications (PUPs or PUAs).
After entering your browser, a browser hijacker would get hold of its settings and change the default home page, search engine, and new tab redirection. All these would promote the dubious web page or search engine.
You might feel that browser hijackers are not much of a threat to your system, and there is no need to get scared of it. Unfortunately, that’s not true. Browser Hijackers itself might not be a significant threat, but when it enters your system, it can bring other more significant risks such as spyware, keyloggers, and other malware programs with it. These malicious software can cause extensive damage to you and your system. Also, the webpages it promotes cannot be trusted. They might be filled with illegitimate and malicious content.
The browser hijacker might have altered your system settings, and that’s the reason search query is redirected to search.yahoo.com without your permission.
How to remove the Yahoo search engine from Chrome?
To stop Yahoo searches from Chrome, you have to catch and remove the culprit browser hijacker, which is the root cause.
For that, follow these steps:
Step 1: Remove Yahoo using Settings
- Open the Chrome browser and go toSettings.
- From the left pane, select theSearch engineoption.
- Choose the search engine of your choice from the drop-down list.
- Now, select theManage search enginesoption.
- Click on the three dots next to Yahoo and chooseRemove from list.
Step 2: Restart your PC in Safe Mode
Windows Safe Mode is the perfect environment to find out and solve the critical errors in the system. In safe mode, only system programs and some crucial programs run. Safe mode would most likely kill the applications and its files that try to run automatically on your system.Follow this guide to boot your Windows 10 PC in theSafe Mode.
Step 3: Remove Web Extensions From Browser
You might have accidentally installed a malicious browser web extension that is causing the redirects.
If you have many web extensions installed in your Chrome browser, it is time to sort them out and at least disable, if not delete, the ones you rarely use. However, you must remove the useless web extensions instead of disabling them. Because, even after disabling them, they might use the CPU processing power while checking for updates and performing updates.
Here are the steps to manage the web extensions on the Chrome Browser:
- Click on the three dots at the top-right corner.
- Bring mouse cursor overMore toolsand from the extended menu chooseExtensions.
- All the extensions would be on your screen
- Look for the ones you want to disable or remove.
Step 4: Reset Web Browser Settings
If your browser is misbehaving because of browser virus, then reset its settings to default.
- Open Chrome and navigate toSettings by clicking on the three-dots at the top right.
- Click on advanced Advanced.
- UnderReset and cleanup,click on “Restore settings to their original defaults.”
- SelectReset settingson the next prompt.
- Relaunch your browser.
Step 5: Uninstall Suspicious Applications
If the Yahoo redirection is still happening on your PC, try to find the culprit application and uninstall it.
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Right-click on the taskbar and select theTask Manager.
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Watch out for the applications that are consuming the system memory even though you did not install or launch them.
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Right-click on the suspicious application and open its file location.
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Delete the file from its root location.
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Open Control Panel and click onUninstall a programand check for suspicious apps. One by one, select and uninstall them.
Step 6: Delete Temporary Files
The temporary files folder can also be a carrier of malicious files. You should delete all the temporary files and folders regularly for the smooth running of the system. Removing the temporary files would also clear the unnecessary clutter from your system and free up valuable space.
Windows 10Windows 11
Remove Temporary Files from Windows 10
Here are the steps to eliminate the temporary files on Windows 10:
- Open the Run command window.
- Type%temp%and hit the enter key.
- This run command would navigate you to this path:C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp,that is, the temp folder.
- Select all Files and Folders of this folder and delete them. Don’t hesitate to delete them, as they are not essential for any of your tasks.
- Next right-click on theRecycle Binand selectEmpty Recycle Bin.
Remove Temporary Files from Windows 11
On Windows 11, it is easy to remove Temporary files. Here are the steps:
- Open Windows 11 Settings from the Start Menu.
- From the left pane, choose System settings and click on Storage from the right.
- Click on the Temporary files option.
- Tick all the boxes that you want to delete and click on Remove files.
Step 7: Install an Antimalware and Perform a Scan
Manually removing malware can be a tedious task, and it takes a lot of time and effort on our part. Sometimes, it may get irritated for you if you are not much into the technology. There is no need to worry; you can get a robust antimalware like MalwareFox that will scan for malware and remove it.
MalwareFox is a reliable security software that promises to protect your system and helps to handle malware and viruses. MalwareFox will scans, detect, and remove Malware and offers real-time protection. It also protects your PC from most dangerous malware such as Ransomware, Zero-Day Attack protection, Grayware, Keyloggers, etc.
- Download Malwarefox and install it.
- Perform a full system scan to get rid of every malware that is troubling your system.
Final Words
These are the steps through which you can remove the browser hijacker and remove the Yahoo Search from Chrome. The steps in this guide are applicable to remove any browser hijacker you come across. However, you should always follow the healthy browsing practices to avoid getting browser viruses on your system.
1. Why do I am always redirected to Yahoo’s search?
If you are periodically redirected to Yahoo search, most probably a malware like Browser Hijacker or Adware has attacked your browser. You can get rid of these malicious programs by following the steps explained in this guide.
2. Is search.yahoo.com a virus?
Yahoo is the legit search engine from a reputed tech company. If you are getting unintentional redirects to search.yahoo.com, it is because a browser hijacker has got an entry on your device.
