Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects - How to remove

Faqtoids.com is a website and a search engine. It shows a lot of problematic ads and lacks any useful features. Faqtoids.com isn’t malicious but if you regularly land on this site or see ads for it, that shows that some kind of adware is messing with your browser.

About Faqtoids.com:

Type of threat	Adware.
How malicious ads spread	Bad browser extensions inject ads into search results and other webpages.
How to stop ads by Faqtoids.com	Find and delete the adware that has infected your browser, find it manually by checking permissions and disabling suspicious browser extensions, or look for it with an anti-malware scanner, such as Spyhunter for Windows, Combo Cleaner for macOS, and others.
Problems with Faqtoids.com	Total lack of features, dangerous and misleading ads that lead to malicious sites and junkware, ads that open other compromised search engines, results for some keywords are composed of links to sites related to Faqtoids.com that function like ads.

How Faqtoids.com spreads

Faqtoids.com is a search engine (a site that searches the internet) by Ask.com. It has no unique features (in fact, it barely has any) and yet, it gets millions of visits monthly. Faqtoids.com is very similar to Top10answers.com, Kensaq.com, Smarter.com, Informationvine.com, and others, such as Izito and Zapmeta.

Most of the time, Faqtoids.com works fine – it does display accurate results. No ability to filter them by any metric makes it unusable for most people, though. So, how does it get nearly 4 million visits a month?

According to web analytics, many of those who arrive on Faqtoids.com come from other fake search engines. And according to people’s experiences that they post online, they see ads for these “search engines” in their Google (or another engine’s) other search results.

That sort of behavior is caused by malicious browser extensions injecting their own ads into your search results. People sometimes think that it is Google that started showing scammy ads, however, Google officially doesn’t allow such ads and does not show them. These bad ads look legitimate but they are injected by a malicious third-party add-on.

Clicking on these ads can send you into a rabbit hole of junkware, deceptive sites, potentially unsafe websites, and even more ad-filled search result pages.

How to stop Faqtoids.com ads

One way to stop seeing Faqtoids.com and its advertisements could be to block the site. But it’s better to find and remove the adware infection that is causing ads to be injected in your browser.

Most likely, the infection behind Faqtoids.com is a browser extension. It might be a new extension or one that you’ve had installed for a long time that was recently updated.

You can use an anti-malware scanner, such as Spyhunter for PC, Combo Cleaner for Mac, or others. You can also check your programs, apps, and browser extensions yourself.

When checking manually, go into browser settings and the extensions section. Detailed instructions for how to do that can be found at the bottom of this page.

To found out which add-on might be causing Faqtoids.com ads to show up, check each of their permissions. Browser extensions use permissions to define what they can do. One permission to watch out for is “Read and change your data on all the websites you visit”. Ad-injectors are usually able to access your data on all the sites you visit or at least on Bing, Google, and other search engines. This allows them to read your webpages and change them, such as to remove and add content.

Once you find suspicious extensions, disable them or remove them. Do not spare any add-ons from your scrutiny or you risk wasting your time. When Faqtoids.com ads stop popping up, you know you got the culprit.

Problems with Faqtoids.com ads

Faqtoids.com seems to function as an advertising platform.  There are way too many ads on it and many of them should be avoided.

Faqtoids.com shows too many ads. Four at the top and four at the bottom seems to be the norm. There’s also an ad in the sidebar.

Some queries show normal ads that lead to relevant websites. For example, when I searched on Faqtoids.com for recipes or for clothing, I got relevant results and relevant ads.

Other times did not go so well. When I searched for some popular pieces of software, such as Chrome, Flash, Zoom, or Office, the ads were pretty bad. Here are some examples:

• Ads for UpdateChecker that spoofed Chrome or an update for Chrome. UpdateChecker faked an installation process (showed pictures of a setup wizard) and then tried to get me to send money by SMS. A related UpdateChecker site downloads a very suspicious Exe (VirusTotal).
• Lots and lots of links to browser hijackers by Ask Applications (for example, MySocialShortcut, DailyRecipeGuide, etc.). These ads target software keywords and then feature big buttons that say “Continue”, so some people who are looking to install another program accidentally install one of these browser hijackers.
• Some ads are links to other search engine results – usually, I saw Izito and Zapmeta – for a related but different query. Then they then display their own ads and make a profit.
• Some keywords cause Faqtoids.com to return dubious search results full of links to Ask.com sites, like Consumersearch.com and Questionsanswered.net, that contain even more ads. These are effectively ads even though they are not labeled as such.
• I also saw on Faqtoids.com ads for shady software distribution sites, such as those that fraudulently sell cheap software activation keys. It’s always a gamble whether these keys work or not.
• Some mild annoyances, such as the constant ads for Amazon’s search results which are always unhelpful.

All search engines have their blunders, for example, recently Google was found advertising paid voting registration services. Also, Google seems to be the one that delivers the ads shown on Faqtoids.com, so it does share the blame for the bad ads. It does also profit from them.

But it is these search engines by Ask – Faqtoids.com and others – that constantly advertise junkware. It really seems to be the norm for them.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manual removal instructions

TopHow To remove Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects 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 Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects, 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 Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects 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 Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects, 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.

How to remove Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects 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 Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects, 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 Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects 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 Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects 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 Faqtoids.com Ads and Redirects, 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.