BigGameCountdown - How to remove

BigGameCountdown (or Big Game Countdown) is a browser hijacker and a newtab virus. It’s distributed as a helpful add-on for fans of sport, promising to make highlights and real-time scores to be available in one browser extension. But instead, BigGameCountdown tries to hijack users’ search, display pop-up ads, and spy on them. This hijacker should be removed as soon as possible, together with any other malware.

BigGameCountdown problems and removal:

Type of threat	Browser hijacker, takes over the browser’s new tab page, reads the user’s browsing history, search terms, and clicks
Signs of BigGameCountdown being unreliable	Users don’t review the product, many intrusive and unnecessary permissions, made by an unreliable developer
Similar hijackers	SportsAddict, BringMeSports, Prime Sports
Remove BigGameCountdown	Uninstall unwanted extensions manually, delete adware programs (you can use anti-malware tools like Combo Cleaner for Mac, SpyHunter for PC)

How dangerous is Big Game Countdown

Though BigGameCountdown promises real-time scores, news, and highlights, it does not deliver this information itself. It posts links to third-party sites, and I don’t mean that there’s a news feed or that BigGameCountdown acts as an aggregator – it doesn’t do anything itself, you have to visit various sport-related sites and find the information yourself. The BigGameCountdown hijacker is not helpful at all and has no obvious features apart from hijacking your new tab page and unhelpfully linking to other sites.

And these sites that BigGameCountdown links to aren’t all guaranteed to be safe. Some of them are full of shady ads. And bad-quality ads are always pretty dangerous. They can show scams, promote scareware, or lead your browser to get infected with notification spammers.

And, BigGameCountdown’s installation is sometimes a result of an adware infection. Adware viruses can show pop-up ads in your browser that follow you to any website and they often open new browser tabs with a deceptively designed installation page for browser hijackers. People who download hijackers like BigGameCountdown sometimes do it because they thought they had to, thanks to one of these deceptive ads.

Installing BigGameCountdown can result in the installation of some other browser hijackers. They might redirect you, track your activities, and show you even more ads.

All the pop-up ads that are shown by BigGameCountdown or other adware are annoying and dangerous. The ads are low-quality, unsafe, including scam sites, malware, and restricted content.

Meanwhile, browser hijackers are still reading your browsing history. They are interested in what you search for because your browsing history and search history are used to show you targeted advertisements. While this data is not personal, it’s not impossible to accurately guess people’s real identity based on their browsing habits, so if you care about that sort of thing, BigGameCountdown is a privacy nightmare.

At the end of the day, it’s not surprising that many reputable antivirus programs find BigGameCountdown to be unsafe.

How to avoid browser hijackers

BigGameCountdown is not the only browser hijacker, and more of these extensions are being released all the time. So, it’s a good idea to become familiar with adware.

When downloading software on download sites, be careful of the ads there. Be careful of ads designed to look like download buttons. They often hide browser hijackers. It might be smart to cease using download sites that bundle software altogether. Certain developers should be avoided, too, if you want to avoid bundlers. Or, be very careful when installing software – read all the options and scan the installer with a good-quality program.

Ads on various streaming sites and other legally-dubious websites often promote hijackers, so be careful of those. If you’re on a streaming site and an ad for BigGameCountdown or another browser extension pops up, just dismiss it.

There are a few features that untrustworthy browser extensions have – and we can use BigGameCountdown as an example:

• Multiple features.
• Too many permissions that are not required for the extension’s main features.
• No reviews, or lots of fake reviews.
• Unreliable or unknown developer.

Normal browser extensions should be focused on one feature. But BigGameCountdown combines sports news, a new tab, and a search redirect. Many similar extensions throw in “Free web search” as an additional feature, which should be a red flag.

BigGameCountdown definitely has too many permissions. It can read your browsing history, manage your extensions, and read your search terms on certain websites. That’s obviously for advertising, not for sports scores.

Lack of reviews is another red flag. On Google Chrome (the most popular web browser) BigGameCountdown has more than 50 thousand users, but only a couple of reviews and ratings. That’s just not normal and can indicate that users do not know that they’ve got this extension or how to manage browser extensions. It could also mean that the extension gets installed without alerting users.

It’s a bit suspicious when the developer is shy about displaying their name. With BigGameCountdown, you can find out who made it by opening the privacy policy – it’s Ask Applications, aka Mindspark. Not a reliable company. They’re known for releasing dozens and dozens of browser hijackers and bundling them with free programs, which results in unintentional installations.

How to remove BigGameCountdown

You can just go ahead and uninstall BigGameCountdown, the instructions are in the next chapter. It’s not really urgent, so don’t worry. Although BigGameCountdown is a browser hijacker and mild malware, it’s not immediately dangerous and it shouldn’t cause any real problems with your computer’s security. The ads that are correlated with it, on the other hand…

Scan your computer with an anti-malware scanner (like Combo Cleaner for MacOS or SpyHunter for Windows) if you suspect that an adware virus other than BigGameCountdown is inside your computer. If you’re seeing excesisve pop-ups and your browser behaving strangely, if your notifications are hijacked, these things can put you in danger because fraudsters and criminals use them to spread their malware and scams through them.

Automatic Malware removal tools

TopHow To remove BigGameCountdown 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 BigGameCountdown, 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.

TopHow to remove BigGameCountdown virus from Internet Explorer:

How to remove BigGameCountdown virus from Internet Explorer (older versions):

• Click on the arrow on the right of the search box.
• Do the following: on IE8-9 choose Manage Search providers, on IE7 click Change search defaults.
• Remove the BigGameCountdown from the list.

How to remove BigGameCountdown from IE 11:

• Click on the Settings icon (top right) → Manage Addons.
  
• Go through Toolbars and extensions. Remove everything related to BigGameCountdown and items you do not know that are made not by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle or Adobe.
  
• Select Search Providers.
  
• If any of these search providers is not available, follow “Find more search providers” in the bottom of the screen and install Google.
  
• Close the Options.
• If your homepage was changed, click on the Gear icon on the top right corner to open the Internet Explorer menu, select Internet options and choose General tab. Enter a preferable URL to the homepage field and click Apply.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

If you are still experiencing any issues related to BigGameCountdown, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Gear icon→Internet Options.
  
• Choose the Advanced tab and click on the Reset
• Select “Delete personal settings” checkbox and click on the Reset button.
  
• Click on the Close button on the confirmation box, then close your browser.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.

How To remove BigGameCountdown 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 BigGameCountdown 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 BigGameCountdown, 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.