Search.hgomapsandirections.com virus - How to remove

Search.hgomapsandirections.com website might appear on your new tab if the web browsing you are using is infected with a specific browser hijacker. That is the main reason why Search.hgomapsandirections.com is categorised as browser hijacker – it will definitely change the way you are browsing the Internet and make things more complicated.

Luckily, there is a way to remove browser hijacker and continue using web browser as you used to before – just a several simple steps and your computer will be cleaned. In case you have no idea how to do that, please continue reading the article and we will provide you with instructions how it should be done the right way.

Features of Search.hgomapsandirections.com browser hijacker

Once again, you are facing a malicious application that comes from Polarity Technologies LTD. This company is truly notorious for the volume of various browser hijackers it has been producing in the past few months. Search.hfastmapfinder.com and Search.hfastrecipefinder.com are just couple of examples of viruses produces by Polarity.

It makes it relatively easy to analyse those infections because they are really similar to each other and we are already used to them. Just to be clear – Search.hgomapsandirections.com website isn’t a virus. The actual virus is “Go Maps and Directions” extension, so you will be seeing this website only if this extension is active on infected browser.

This extension is described as “fast access to driving directions from your new tab page”. While this description isn’t totally misleading, it won’t provide you with any useful functions either. Once installed on your web browser, it will automatically change new tab page to www.search.hgomapsandirections.com, so this website will appear every time you open a new tab.

At a first sight it looks just like a regular homepage – toolbar with various links and a search field. However, we do not recommend to use neither of those features. The mentioned toolbar will only provide you links to sites link Google Maps and besides that, there are some links to the sites that are affiliated with Polarity and those websites might be dangerous, therefore we do not recommend to click on them at all.

The same goes for the search function – even though it redirects you to Yahoo search, those results displayed there might be modified and this way you would get irrelevant and unwanted results. What’s even more scary – they are actively collecting information about you and that even includes your personal data. Just take a look at their Privacy Policy:

BY USING THE SERVICES, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO GRANT POLARITY PERMISSION TO COLLECT YOUR URLS AND SEARCH DATA, INCLUDING SEARCH QUERIES THAT MAY CONTAIN PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION, SHARE THEM WITH THIRD PARTIES, AND USE SEARCH-RELATED COOKIES

Basically what that means is that if some of your personal information slips into the search, it might be recorded and then transferred to other parties. This could possibly end in a much more severe consequences.

If you are wondering how this infection managed to enter your computer, it probably came bundled with other free software. When you download free programs from the Internet, pay close attention to the installation process because other free software an be bundled with it and you will eventually install it yourself.

How to get rid of Search.hgomapsandirections.com browser hijacker?

As said before, it’s not that difficult to remove Search.hgomapsandirections.com infection from your computer. First of all, depending on the version of the web browser you are using, head to the extensions section and detect ‘Go Maps and Directions” extension, then remove it.

Even though after doing this you should not be seeing the website anymore, it can be still restored later on, because some malicious files are still operating on your computer. Obviously, you have to delete them too. The best way to do that is to get yourself some anti-malware application and scan your computer with it. We recommend to use Spyhunter – either one of them should have no problems in detecting and removing infection like this.

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