Gaming Assassin Hijacker - How to remove

Gaming Assassin is a browser extension that is supposed to help you play games of a variety of genres on your browser’s new tab page – the same page from which you can search the web. Gaming Assassin was released by a company already well known for its browser hijackers. It hijacks your browser and can reveal your search queries to advertisers.

Gaming Assassin should probably be uninstalled:

Classification	Browser hijacker, adware.
Removing Gaming Assassin	Uninstall unwanted browser extensions, delete malware or remove it with an antivirus program, such as Combo Cleaner for Mac OS and SpyHunter for Windows].
Installation of Gaming Assassin	Advertised online, especially by other adware, sneaked in with another browser extension or with a free program.
Problems with hijackers	You lose control over your new tab page and possibly your search engine settings, your browsing habits are used for advertising.

How to remove Gaming Assassin from your browser

Though Gaming Assassin lets you play games in your new tab, it also hijacks that page and your browser. It shows you web search results full of ads and spies on your browsing history. I’d really advise you to just remove it.

Not just Gaming Assassin, but also Hide My Searches or Search Extension by Ask, if it’s installed. Gaming Assassin is just the gateway for a stronger hijacker to infiltrate your browser, often under the excuse that it will make your searches more private (the opposite is true).

You can uninstall unwanted add-ons by opening browser settings and disabling or removing them. Sometimes it doesn’t work, though. Sometimes the extension keeps returning, or the removal option is just not there. In these cases, you may need to do a few things:

• delete suspicious installers and files to prevent Gaming Assassin from being reinstalled,
• scan your computer for malicious files and scripts to find if malware is messing with your settings,
• check if Gaming Assassin is abusing Enterprise Policy to hide the “Remove” option.

For scanning your computer, a program that can detect potentially unwanted programs (really mild malware) is recommended, such as Combo Cleaner for Mac, SpyHunter for PC, or another tool that you trust. It’s also important to have the latest updates installed so that your antivirus tool performs as well as possible.

How does Gaming Assassin get installed?

There are a few options for how Gaming Assassin got on your computer:

• you saw its ad online,
• it was “required” or “recommended” by some website,
• it was installed with another browser extension,
• it was bundled with a free program.

Some thirty thousand people have installed Gaming Assassin on their browsers. No reviews, though – as if people don’t care about the extension, or don’t know that they have it. Lack of reviews on such a popular extension is definitely a red flag that should make you suspicious.

Gaming Assassin likely tries to get you to agree to install Search Extension by Ask or Hide My Searches. These hijackers replace your default search engine. Heck, Gaming Assassin has in its permissions the ability to interact with Ask.com sites. Hijackers often come in groups and try to get you to install more of them.

Gaming Assassin is advertised online – promoted on browser game sites and on alternative search engines, like Kensaq.com and Searchestab.com. Sites like this show a lot of ads for search hijackers, including various PDF converters, map readers, and package trackers. They’re often not very relevant to the search. A lot of those who found Gaming Assassin were looking for games like GTA 5, Fortnite, and The Sims. However, Gaming Assassin only offers casual games, like card games and match-threes, so it’s not really relevant to them.

If you saw Gaming Assassin in your search results, that’s suspicious. Unless you searched for it specifically, finding it in search is a sign that your browser may have already been hijacked. For example, I first found this browser extension after getting the Games Lol adware installed. A link to Gamingassassin.com was there, I opened it, and it offered me to “Play 100s Of Games For Free”. Agreeing to “Continue” led to Gaming Assassin’s installation page.

I should also mention that hijackers sometimes spread via bundling, where a free program installs some unwanted software in the background. That free software should warn you about unwanted additional programs, but it may use tiny, hard-to-read font or tuck the warnings in some advanced settings page that you will skip.

Issues and problems with Gaming Assassin

When you install Gaming Assassin, you do get some casual games on your new tab page, and that’s pretty cool – even if your new tab page is replaced with some old and outdated design. They do work, although they’re not always functional offline, despite Gaming Assassin promising that they would work.

Gaming Assassin sets hp.myway.com/gamingassassin/ttab02/index.html as your new tab and as your home page. This page has a link to Myway.com, an alternative search engine operated by the company that made Gaming Assassin – Mindspark. This company has released some other browser extensions, like ActionClassicGames and FunPopularGames. It profits from hijacking people’s online searches and showing them ads.

Another huge concern is privacy. Your browsing history and your search history are collected for marketing purposes. This data is saved and shared for use for ads outside the Gaming Assassin and MyWay sites. Although this data is supposed to be anonymous, we know that it’s totally possible to match a persons identity to their anonymous data.

Because of all that, Gaming Assassin being found suspicious by a few reliable antivirus programs is totally justified.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manual removal instructions

TopRemoving Gaming Assassin 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 Gaming Assassin Hijacker. Click on the trash bin icon next to Gaming Assassin 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 Gaming Assassin Hijacker, 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.

TopRemoving Gaming Assassin Hijacker 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 Gaming Assassin 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.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to Gaming Assassin 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.
  
• 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.

How to remove Gaming Assassin 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 Gaming Assassin Hijacker. Click on the "Remove" icon next to Gaming Assassin 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 Microsoft Edge.

TopRemove malicious extensions from Internet Explorer

• Press on the Gear icon→Manage Add-ons.
  
• Go through Toolbars and extensions. Remove everything related to Gaming Assassin Hijacker and items you do not know that are made not by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle or Adobe.
  
• Close the Options.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

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

• Press on the Gear icon->Internet Options.
  
• Choose the Advanced tab and click on the Reset button.
  
• Select a “Delete personal settings” checkbox and click on the Reset button.
  
• Click on the Close button on the confirmation box, then close your browser.
  

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