Alphasearch.co Hijacker - How to remove

Alphasearch.co, or Alpha Search, takes internet search queries and opens the results in Yahoo or Bing. It offers no useful features, only displays ads in the browser and logs user data. Alpha Search is a browser extension while Alphasearch.co is a website and together, this duo can be considered a browser hijacker, as well as adware.  You can get rid of Alphasearch.co by opening browser settings and removing Alpha Search from your extensions.

About Alphasearch.co:

Type of threat	Browser hijacker, adware.
How Alphasearch.co works	Changes the default search engine, redirects searches to Yahoo or Bing, logs user data, displays ads in the browser.
Dangers posed by Alpha Search	Low-quality ads that lead to malware and to scams, wasted screen space and time.
Removing Alphasearch.co	Uninstall Alpha Search and other unwanted extensions, remove malware with antivirus programs, such as Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, others.

Alphasearch.co search hijacker and adware

Once Alpha Search is installed, your browser doesn’t change much. You get a line in the address bar that says “Search Secure or type a URL” and when you type something in it, the results come back in Bing or in Yahoo. There appear to be some bugs with Alphasearch.co that make the situation even more frustrating.

When Alpha Search is getting installed, one of its permissions is to change your search engine settings to Alphasearch.co. That’s why it’s able to control where your search queries go.

Another permission it has is to read and change your data on all the sites you visit. This can be used for a lot:

• To log user data, including passwords and other private information.
• To inject ads into every webpage.
• To redirect buttons and links.
• To stop certain websites from opening.

According to Alphasearch.co’s privacy policy, Alpha Search collects data about the user like browser settings, IP, and search queries (though it promises that the queries aren’t used for marketing).

Also according to that privacy policy, Alphasearch.co works as a platform for third parties to display ads. Alpha Search’s operators are paid by search result providers for redirecting traffic to them, additional promotions and suggestions are shown during web browsing, ads are shown based on your data.

Problems with Alpha Search

Alphasearch.co’s behavior and its privacy policy imply that Alpha Search was made to log user data and advertise. That’s bad enough – it’s a privacy problem, it wastes user time, and injected ads create problems for website owners as well as browser users.

Being adware, Alpha Safe Search may display ads that are dangerous or low-quality. It’s very common for adware infections to display ads that promote malware and scams: giveaways scams, get-rich-quick schemes, shady diet pills, etc. Generally, adware programs have low requirements for the kinds of ads they show, which attracts malware, scams, and other content that usually gets blocked by advertising networks.

To Alphasearch.co’s victims, this means being exposed to dangerous content and potentially getting malware infections or falling for phishing scams (info-stealing sites).

Not to mention the search redirects. Alphasearch.co is somewhat similar to S3redirect.com, Tiktok-searches.com, and other sites that grab your search query and send it to some shady site. If the operators of these sites wished, they could suddenly change how the hijacker behaves. Alphasearch.co could one day start opening some other site to deliver search results in.

How to remove Alphasearch.co

Some people might be tempted to “solve” the Alphasearch.co redirect issue by installing another search replacer on top of Alpha Search to overwrite its influence. But there’s a simpler way.

Go into your browser settings, extensions, find Alpha Search, and remove it. To check for other malware, scan your computer with an antivirus program, like Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, and others and examine the scan results.

After deleting all bad files and programs, check your browser’s search engine and other settings. You should be in control over your browser settings, not some random adware extension.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Restore browser settings

TopHow To remove Alphasearch.co 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 Alphasearch.co 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 Alphasearch.co 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 Alphasearch.co Hijacker, 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 Alphasearch.co 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 Alphasearch.co 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 Alphasearch.co 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.