Ads by Flow - How to remove

Flow is a browser extension. Even though Flow is advertised as a tool to improve your search results, it behaves like an adware infection. Once it’s installed, it injects ads into your web search results. Flow labels these ads as “Ads by flow related to…”. To get rid of them, you need to remove Flow from your browser.

About Flow ads in short:

Type of threat	Adware, browser hijacker.
Problems and issues	Flow injects ads into Google.com pages, it can see your search queries and other data about your browsing history and your computer.
How Flow spreads	Advertised online and by other browser hijackers, bundled with freeware.
Removing Flow ads	Uninstall Flow and other unwanted extensions, review/scan your computer and delete malware manually or with antivirus tools (Spyhunter for PC, Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for Mac).

Problems with Flow

Flow is promoted by a few sites, including Mysearchflow.com and Flowext.com. Flow is a simple browser extension that injects ads into your search results – if you use Google, which a lot of people do. In its description, Flow frames this as providing users with additional relevant results, some of which may be sponsored.

These results appear on top of the genuine Google results. They are labeled as “Ads by flow related to…” and they link to Flow’s privacy policy on Flowext.com.

The privacy policy describes what data Flow collects about its users:

• your location (IP address),
• your search terms (though Flows claims that this data is deleted soon after your ads and results being served),
• data about your computer, like your language and your operating system.

Overall, Flow seems to be purely an advertising product. It collects data about you so that it can display targeted ads.

Seeing additional ads for no good reason isn’t the only problem. Another is that the ads may be irrelevant or even dangerous.

Google has its guidelines for what kinds of advertisements it shows. It restricts certain topics that are easily abused or potentially harmful (like some payday loan ads). But Flow can inject any content it wants into your results. It may not be doing that now, but it could randomly start showing malicious links with no warning. Luckily, Flow’s ad injection is pretty mild compared to how bad it could be.

How Flow ads spread

Mysearchflow.com and Flowext.com are advertised on online streaming sites (free movie and TV show sites), random news sites, browser games, and torrenting sites. Ads for Flow appear as pop-ups, they often open a new tab in your browser.

Also, I suspect that a lot of users of Flow encountered this extension through an adware infection. Adware viruses and browser extensions inject ads into your browser. Very similarly to how Flow does it, but on more sites than just Google.com.

Let’s not forget bundling – unwanted extensions like Flow may come bundled with free programs, offered as tools that “enhance” your browsing experience. Programs that bundle junkware can be anything, like the Free Audio Editor that we recently wrote about.

Flow is a simple ad-injecting extension with no valuable features. Of course people aren’t going to install it voluntarily. So, the operators of Flow need to trick people into installing it. The same goes for Flow’s many cousins, including FlowGreen, FlowSurf, and FlowShot.

How to remove Flow ads

To stop seeing “Ads by flow” in your search results, open the browser that is affected by the ads and uninstall the Flow browser extension. You can do that by right-clicking Flow’s icon in the upper right corner of your browser or by going into browser settings. At the same time, review your other extensions – see if any of them are no longer used or if they’re unfamiliar to you.

For example, Flow is a bit similar to the Hyper Search and Pro Search extensions, and it seems to be related to Quick Speedtest and SearchMulty.

If you often deal with obnoxious and deceptive ads, scan your computer with an anti-malware program, such as Spyhunter for Windows, Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for macOS, and others). If there’s malware on your device, delete it. If you’re getting unwanted notification pop-ups, block them.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove unwanted extensions

TopRemoving Ads by Flow 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 Flow Ads by Mysearchflow.com. Click on the trash bin icon next to Ads by Flow 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 Flow Ads by Mysearchflow.com, 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 Ads by Flow 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 Ads by Flow. Click on the "Remove" icon next to Flow Ads by Mysearchflow.com 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.

TopRemoving Ads by Flow from Firefox

• 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 Flow Ads by Mysearchflow.com 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.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to Ads by Flow, 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.
  
• Choose Troubleshooting Information on the Help menu.
  
• Click on the Reset Firefox button.
  
• Click on the Reset Firefox button on the confirmation box. Mozilla Firefox will close and change the settings to default.
  

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