Games-search.net Search Hijacker - How to remove

Games-search.net is a search-hijacking website that takes over the browser when Games Search for Chrome™ is installed. Games-search.net opens Yahoo by default to display the results and collects search queries to enable revenue sharing with Yahoo. Although Games-search.net does enable easier search of casual browser games on a handful of websites, that functionality doesn’t seem worth the search restrictions and privacy problems that come with Games-search.net.

About Games-search.net:

Classification	Browser hijacker, adware.
How to stop Games-search.net redirects	Remove the Games Search for Chrome™ extension, scan for and remove other malware (Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, others).
How Games-search.net affects the browser	Constantly redirects searches to Yahoo.com, collects IP, location, search queries, and other data for advertising.
How Games Search for Chrome™ spreads	Advertised on game pirating sites, promoted by other browser hijackers.

How to remove Games-search.net

Games-search.net is a website. The address “Games-search.net” briefly appears in the address box of a browser before it opens another search engine (by default, Yahoo.com). This happens when Games-search.net is set as the default search engine in browser settings.

Games-search.net search hijacking is caused by the Games Search for Chrome™. Remove or disable it and your searches will go back to normal. Unless there are other browser hijackers installed. In which case, check every one of your extensions manually and scan your computer with anti-malware tools, such as Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, etc.

I put the instructions for removing Games Search for Chrome™ at the bottom but it’s as simple as opening the extension icons in the upper right corner of the browser, right-click Games Search for Chrome™’s, and click on the Remove option.

When you install Games Search for Chrome™, Chrome is likely to show multiple warnings about the extension changing your search settings and the default search engine to Games-search.net. It gives you an opportunity to revert the changes made by Games Search for Chrome™. If you take the opportunity, Chrome will disable or remove (depending on the warning) the extension. If Games Search for Chrome™ is disabled, it’s still installed, it just can’t do anything. You can remove it.

I didn’t notice Games-search.net sending notification pop-ups but if such pop-ups are plaguing your browser, check out our post on blocking notifications.

Problems with Games-search.net

Mainly, the problem with Games-search.net is that it replaces the search engine in the browser without a very good justification. The idea is that Games Search for Chrome™ helps users search for casual games by injecting search suggestions that lead straight to game sites. But this functionality is very minimal – and in exchange, Games-search.net gets to replace people’s search engine setting, which is quite intrusive.

Games Search for Chrome™ could have provided a separate search box in its extension pop-up. It would have been less intrusive.

As it is, Games-search.net collects usage data, including search queries, and shares it with Yahoo to enable monetization. Games-search.net constantly redirects to Yahoo: even though Games Search for Chrome™ allows the default search site to be changed to Bing or Google, this change doesn’t survive between browser restarts. Games-search.net always opens Yahoo by default. This is very inconvenient to everyone who would prefer to use another site to search the web.

Not to mention, Games-search.net’s limited search selection skips a lot of search engines just because they’re not very popular.

How Games Search for Chrome™ spreads

Games-search.net is the search site while Games-search.com is where Games Search for Chrome™ can be found advertising. Games-search.com is advertised on a small variety of sites:

• Pop-up and redirect ads on file download sites, torrenting sites.
• Ads on faucet sites.
• Pirating sites for games.

It’s possible that people who end up on Games-search.com mistake Games Search for Chrome™ for a required installation or for the item that they were trying to download. This way, Games-search.net could infect computers without people’s informed consent, even if users did click the button “Add to Chrome” themselves.

Hijackers like Games-search.net may also spread as they’re advertised by other hijackers (such as Myprivacykeeper.com, which seems to be closely related) and bundled with free installers for other programs, also possibly leading to unintentional installation.

It’s hard to say if anyone installs Games-search.net manually. Games Search for Chrome™ has no reviews on the Chrome Web Store, which is extremely strange for a browser extension with more than seventy thousand users – unless those users aren’t aware of the extension being installed.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove unwanted extensions

TopHow To remove Games-search.net Search 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 Games-search.net Search 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 Games-search.net Search 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 Games-search.net Search 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 Games-search.net Search 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 Games-search.net Search 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 Games-search.net Search 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.