Cranchit Hijacker - How to remove

Cranchit is a potentially unwanted program with clear features of a browser hijacker. Its developers promote it as a utility to considerably improve your browsing by helping you obtain more relevant results. The problem is that Cranchit is not what it claims to be. Instead of assisting you in getting the requested information in a faster way, the hijacker delivers irrelevant content on top of the pseudo search results.

Cranchit browser hijacker should be quickly removed:

Type of program	Browser hijacker, browser adware.
What Cranchit does	Hijacks search settings in your browser, opens Yahoo when searching the web, reads your browsing history.
Distribution and installation	Downloaded with free programs unknowingly, installed by following deceptive sites/ads.
Removing Cranchit	Uninstall browser extensions that are suspicious, scan your computer with an antivirus program (Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, etc.), delete unwanted and malicious programs.

Cranchit promotes a fake search engine known as feed.cranchit.com. The hijacker sets this website into important browser settings, without letting the victims make their own decisions in terms of customizing their own preferred browser parameters. Additionally, Cranchit performs continuous spying over the user’s browsing activities and thus poses serious risks to privacy on the web. Finally, it is spread often without the user’s permission or even knowledge. This is a brief summary of why you should remove Cranchit as soon as possible. The rest of the guide will provide you with detailed information about the origin of the hijacker, its impact on your browsers and ways of successful elimination.

Cranchit distribution methods.

The basic information about Cranchit may be found on its official page cranchit.com. You may find some integrated useful features, such as converting documents into PDF format, currency exchange, crypto-currency converter and calculator. However, we really doubt that setting this particular page will be your own decision.

Cranchit.com distributors often refer to the practice of bundling the product with other free applications. Let’s suppose that you would like to install specific utility for playing audio or video files in a more convenient way. You may find a lot of such apps for free on the web, however, their installers may additionally suggest the installation of other extra programs you do not need. At this point, you ought to be extremely careful not to allow any such apps to be installed by default. Make sure you pay attention to the information provided during the setup process, always selecting the “Advanced” or “Custom” installation where you may deselect Cranchit and other extras you don’t need. Failure to be careful results in many junk applications to be activated on your device soon.

Your personal caution online is also very important. You need to stay away from visiting suspicious resources offering fake software updates, for instance, the pop-up demanding updates of Adobe Flash Player, Java or other similar software. Stay away from using peer-to-peer download resources that often include a lot of third-party software installers.

Similar to Cranchit are Logic Search, Vista Search, SearchYA, and a few other hijackers – all by the same company, Webcoapps. If you have one of them in your browser, you may have others, too. So be careful during removal and check all of your programs and extensions.

How does Cranchit affect your browser?

Cranchit attacks popular browsers like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. After successful installation, it sets feed.cranchit.com in the following browser settings:

• home page on startup;
• default search engine;
• new tab URL.

You may prefer to use Google Search as your home page and main search engine, however, Cranchit tries to make the decisions instead of you. It redirects all your queries through feed.cranchit.com and then delivers search results through Yahoo Search (search.yahoo.com). At first glance, these changes may look insignificant for some people. However, when they attempt to restore the browser parameters back to the initial values, Cranchit is still in control. It is impossible to recover the attacked browsers without the utter removal of the hijacker.
Finally, Cranchit (like many browser extensions) represents a danger to your privacy because it continuously tracks all your browsing activities. It keeps records of all your submitted search queries, IP addresses and geographical locations, visited URLs and other confidential details. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the authors of this hijacker will keep this information secret. The research of similar browser modifiers points to the fact that often the collected data is disclosed to third parties illegally. Based on these factors, Cranchit should be deleted as soon as you identify its presence in your browser.

How to get rid of Cranchit virus?

There are important manual steps for you to implement to set your browser free of the Cranchit control. First of all, carefully examine the list of your available programs. Cranchit setup file is often integrated with many free applications, so it could be installed along with other suspicious software without your knowledge. If you locate any suspicious third-party programs in the Control Panel of your PC or in Mac Applications, uninstall them right away. Secondly, inspect your browser extensions (add-ons). If there is any indication to the items associated with Cranchit, disable and delete them.

The manual browser cleanup reviewed above is often effective and sufficient enough to get rid of Cranchit and restoring your own control over browser settings. However, there is still a need for you to perform a detailed analysis of your device with reliable security software. Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, and other programs can do a good job with that. This is important because there may be other suspicious software remaining active and hard to be detected visually. Consider the automatic malware removal instructions provided in the rest of the article.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manually remove Cranchit

How to remove Cranchit Hijacker using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Cranchit 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 Cranchit Hijacker . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Cranchit 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.

TopRemoving Cranchit Hijacker from Chrome

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Google Chrome window. Select “Settings”.
  
• Click “Extensions” on the left menu bar.
• Go through the extensions list and remove programs you do not need, especially similar to Cranchit. Click on the trash bin icon next to Cranchit Hijacker or other add-ons you want to remove.
  
• Press on the “Remove” button on the Confirmation window.
  
• If unsure, you can disable them temporarily.
  
• Restart Chrome.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

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

• Click on Chrome’s menu button (three horizontal lines) and select Settings.
  
• Scroll to the end of the page and click on the Reset 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 Cranchit Hijacker from Microsoft Edge:Top

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Microsoft Edge window. Select “Extensions”.

• Go through the extensions list and remove programs you do not need, especially similar to Cranchit Hijacker. Click on the "Remove" icon next to Cranchit or other add-ons you want to remove.

• Press on the “Remove” button on the Confirmation window.

• If unsure, you can disable them temporarily.

• Restart Microsoft Edge.