Catstart.com hijacker - How to remove

Catstart.com hijacker is listed as browser hijacker not for no reason – described as potential threat to your cyber security, this infection is goind to literally take over your web browswer by automatically changing settings that matters the most.

First of all, you might be wondering how this infection managed to get inside of your computer? Even if you have never had a computer virus before, malware can attack you pretty easy in certain circumstances. We have checked this website with Alexa site analysis and discovered that two main websites that users tend to visit immediately before visiting Catstart.com are check-weather.biz and allinoneoffice.net. Both of those websites are promoting some kind of browser add-ons so there is no doubt that catstart.com comes as a bundle to those tools.

What is a bundle, you may ask. Bundling is a type of software distribution (mostly applied to freeware) when yuo download a certain application and receive an offer to install other, additional tools alongside. Most of the time those “offers” are default or even hidden, therefore you can install something like catstart.com to your web browser without being aware of that happening. Moreover, this kind of distribution is legal. However, it is obviously unfair and that is one of the reasons why catstart.com is categorised as browser hijacker.

As it can be seen by looking at the report provided by SimilarWeb, CatStart is most popular in USA and India. ANd by saying “most popular”, we mean that most users infected by this malware are based in those countries. Even though we do not know the origins of this infection, based on the looks it reminds of Triangles-move.com virus which was discovered recently, so it might be that those two are somehow associated.

Analysis of Catstart.com website

It should be clear that the website itself is not a virus – the virus is considered to be an add-on which sets this website as a homepage, default search engine and new tab page on infected web browser. You might think that it’s enough to disable malicious extension and the virus will be gone, but things are not that easy with browser hijackers. There are some malicious files stored on your computer as well, thus they have to be detected and removed. It can be difficult to do that manually, so we recommend to get yourself anti-malware application – Spyhunter. Either one of those programs should detect and remove catstart.com from your computer. However, removal process is not over yet – you will also have to reset settings on your web browser. You can do that by following instructions provided below this article.

Catstart.com website looks like a fancy search engine with image of cats in the background (apparently that’s where the name comes from). The main function of the websites (web search) is functioning normally because all search queries are processed using Google search engine. However, every time you search for something using this website, your search is being tracked and you can get redirected to dangerous (or simply annoying) websites at any time.

If that’s not enough, catstart.com can serve as gates to your computer for other malware. You already know that CatStart virus comes bundled with other free software and it is doing the same itself – at any given time it might attempt to infiltrate other unwanted or malicious software to your system.

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How to remove Catstart.com hijacker using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Catstart.com hijacker install some of their components as regular Windows programs as well as additional software. This part of malware can be uninstalled from the Control Panel. To access it, do the following.

• Start→Control Panel (older Windows) or press Windows Key→Search and enter Control Panel and then press Enter (Windows 8, Windows 10).
• Choose Uninstall Program (if you don't see it, click in the upper right next to "View by" and select Category).
• Go through the list of programs and select entries related to Catstart.com hijacker . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Catstart.com hijacker easier to find.
• Click the Uninstall button. If you're asked if you really want to remove the program, click Yes.
• In many cases anti-malware programs are better at detecting related parasites, thus I recommend installing Spyhunter to identify other programs that might be a part of this infection.

How to remove Catstart.com hijacker from macOS

Delete Catstart.com hijacker from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the Catstart.com hijacker app.
5. Select it and right-click it (or hold the Ctrl and click the left mouse button).
6. In the dropdown, click Move to Bin/Trash. You might be asked to provide your login password.

TopHow To remove Catstart.com 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 Catstart.com 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 Catstart.com 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 Catstart.com 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 Catstart.com 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.

How to remove Catstart.com 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 Catstart.com 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 Catstart.com hijacker from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Catstart.com hijacker and other suspicious extensions.
  
• If your homepage was changed, click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences and choose General tab. Enter preferable URL to the homepage field.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings(older versions) If you are still experiencing any issues related to Catstart.com hijacker, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Reset Safari…
  
• Select which options you want to reset (usually all of them come preselected) and click on the Reset button.
  

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

Manual removal