16Start.com virus - How to remove

16Start.com virus is a browser hijacker that can be installed to random computers when users are downloading various freeware. It can come bundled with free music players, video recorders, PDF creators and many other applications. As soon as it gets inside the system, it makes some changes in your Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Basically, it sets your homepage and default search provider to 16start.com and takes over your browsing.

The program includes lots of sponsored websites to your search results and it may collect information about your search queries. 16Start.com virus seeks to promote various commercial websites and boost their traffic as its creators are getting money from affiliate links. Collecting your search terms can be useful for further advertising campaigns, so it is also an important objective of 16Start.com virus.

As already mentioned, the program is installed together with other applications. So if you want to avoid it, you have to pay more attention to the installation steps when you are downloading any freeware to your computer. Most of the times, you will have to deselect several checkboxes that offer installing additional applications, so they would not be downloaded automatically.

If your browsers have already been affected, you have to remove 16Start.com virus, go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs list and uninstall it from there. It is recommended to uninstalling ALL programs installed on the same date as problems have appeared. Some versions of this hijacker install software that blocks browser settings from changing. To identify them, scanning with Spyhunter or other reputable antispyware tool might be useful. Then you can uninstall the extensions and reset settings in your browsers.

How To remove 16Start.com virus from Internet Explorer:

1. Click arrow on the right of search box
2. Do following: On IE8-9 choose Manage Search providers, On ie7 click change search defaults
3. Remove the 16Start.com from the list

How To remove 16Start.com virus from Firefox :

1. Enter “about:config” in url bar. This will open settings page
2. Type “Keyword.url” in the search box. Right click it & reset it.
3. Type “browser.search.defaultengine” in the search box. Right click it & reset it.
4. Type “browser.search.selectedengine” in the search box. Right click it & reset it.
5. Search for ‘browser.newtab.url’. Right-click and reset. This will make sure that the search page won’t launch on each new tab.
6. If the settings revert and scan with anti-malware programs are clean: Close Firefox, open file explorer and enter %AppData% in the address bar. enter user.js in search box. If this file exists, rename it and start Firefox again. You will have to repeat the steps above.

How To remove 16Start.com virus from Google Chrome:

1. Click 3 horizontal lines icon on browser toolbar.
2. Select Settings.
3. Select Basics ->Manage Search engines.
4. Remove unnecessary search engines from the list.
5. Go back to settings. On Startup choose open blank page ( you can remove undesired pages from the set pages link too).

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manual removal