Delete MovieSearchOnline browser hijacker

If your browser is suddenly loading moviesearchonline.com every time you open your browser, your computer is infected with a very generic MovieSearchOnline browser hijacker. It’s a pretty minor infection that doesn’t directly harm the computer. However, as you’ve likely already noticed, it does make unwanted changes to your browser’s settings without permission. It will also try to redirect you to sponsored websites by pushing a questionable search engine nearbyme.io that alters search results.

 

 

MovieSearchOnline is a very generic browser hijacker with no particularly interesting features. It’s practically identical to hijackers like SportSearchly, PDFConverterSearchZone, and GreatSearchPDF as they all come from the same family of infections. They all behave in the same way, install via software bundling, push a useless homepage, and promote either the searchlee.com or nearbyme.io search engines. The main purpose of these infections is to redirect to sponsored websites and generate revenue/traffic.

Often, browser hijackers are advertised as useful extensions that would supposedly improve browsing. However, they don’t actually do anything besides make unwanted changes to your browser’s settings. Though at least it will not harm your computer directly. It will, however, make unwanted changes to your browser’s settings. More specifically, it will set moviesearchonline.com as the homepage and nearbyme.io as the default search engine. These changes will affect all popular browsers, including Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. You may have also already noticed that the changes are irreversible while the hijacker is installed. Until you remove MovieSearchOnline, your browser will continue to load moviesearchsnline.com every time you open it.

The site set as your homepage is very generic, it has shortcuts to a PDF converter, a cryptocurrency and currency converter, and a calculator. But it’s mainly promoting a questionable search engine nearbyme.io. If you use the search box on the site or if you do a search via your browser’s address bar, you will be shown nearbyme.io search results with advertisements mixed in. The results are altered to redirect you to sponsored websites as that is the main purpose of a browser hijacker. The majority of those results will lead to useless websites that have little to do with what you were initially searching for. It should also be noted that some of those sites will lead to potentially dangerous websites, such as ones that hide malware or promote scams.

The hijacker’s data collection practices should also be discussed. In case you are not aware of this, the hijacker will track what you search for, what sites you visit, what kind of content you interact with, your IP address, etc. It will not collect personal information but its data collection is still intrusive enough to warrant removal. It also shares the information with third parties who then use it for advertisement purposes. Considering that you get nothing in return, there is no reason to put up with the hijacker and its intrusive behavior.

It’s important that you know how the hijacker was installed on your computer so that you can prevent such unwanted installations in the future. Infections like adware and browser hijackers usually install via what’s known as the software bundling method. This will be explained in more detail in the following section but the hijacker essentially came attached to a free program you installed.

Browser hijacker distribution methods

More minor infections like adware, browser hijackers, potentially unwanted programs (PUP) use the software bundling method to uninstall. To put it simply, they come attached to free software as extra offers. Those added offers are permitted to install alongside the program without your permission. Because the method allows unwanted programs to install quite sneakily, software bundling is the perfect installation method for browser hijackers and adware. Keep in mind that the majority of free programs will come with these offers attached, and once they install, they can be difficult to get rid of. It’s much easier to prevent their installation from the very beginning compared to having to delete them later on. If you learn how to correctly install free programs, you will be able to avoid the unwanted installations that come with it.

The offers that come attached to free programs are optional, which means you can prevent their installation. As long as you pay attention when installing free programs, you should be able to easily avoid infections. Above all else, when you are given the option during free installation, you need to choose Advanced (Custom) settings. The installation window will recommend that you use Default settings but if you do, the offers that come attached to the free program will be concealed from you and permitted to install without your explicit permission. In Advanced settings, all added offers will be made visible, and you will have the option to deselect all of them. Generally, offers that are attached to free software should not be permitted to install. They are all more or less useless so allowing their installation will just be filling your computer with junk. Software bundling is a very sneaky installation method and programs that use it are essentially trying to get in without getting your permission.

It’s also possible that the hijacker was advertised as a useful extension and you installed it knowingly, believing it would improve your browsing somehow. If that is the case and you installed it willingly, we strongly recommend you be more careful with the programs you install in the future. A search with Google or some other reliable search engine would have shown many results suggesting its removal. In general, you should always research programs before installing them.

MovieSearchOnline removal

You can remove MovieSearchOnline both manually and using anti-virus software. Browser hijackers aren’t serious infections so manual MovieSearchOnline removal shouldn’t cause too much trouble. However, it’s much easier to use anti-virus programs like WiperSoft, especially if you have very little experience when it comes to removing persistent infections. WiperSoft would also undo all setting changes made by the hijacker. It’s also much less time-consuming. Once the hijacker is gone, you will be able to make browser setting changes again.