Hot-finder.com virus - How to remove

Hot-finder.com virus is a browser hijacker that enters computers without a user’s permission and takes control over Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Once inside, it changes your homepage to hot-finder.com. Although it looks like a regular search provider, this change is made without a user’s consent. Moreover, the website is not a reliable one, as it provides a lot of sponsored pages and tries to make you click on commercial links.

When it comes to the methods Hot-finder.com virus uses to infiltrate into computers, usually it comes bundled to other freeware, like music or video players, PDF creators and so on. You should always be very careful with the installation steps of any freeware and if you see that it suggests you to replace your homepage or search engine to Hot-finder.com, you should never agree to do that. A lot of users go through the installation steps blindly without reviewing any settings selected for them. This way the unwanted changes may be made automatically.

Beware that other potentially unwanted programs may come together with Hot-finder.com virus. Other adware may bring even more problems for you and involve you into other activities of the third parties. Moreover, if you visit any one of the websites that is included in the search results by this provider, you cannot be guaranteed that the link is safe. It is strongly recommended to remove Hot-finder.com virus as soon as you detect it.

Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove programs list and uninstall anything related to Hot-finder.com from there. Some versions of this hijacker install software that blocks browser settings from changing. To identify them, scanning with Spyhunter or other reputable antispyware tool might be useful. Then you can uninstall the extensions and reset settings in your browsers.

How to remove Hot-finder.com virus  from Internet Explorer (older versions):

1. Click on the arrow on the right of the search box;
2. Do the following: on IE8-9 choose Manage Search providers, on IE7 click on Change search defaults;
3. Remove Hot-finder.com from the list.

How to remove Hot-finder.com virus from IE 11:

1. Click on the Settings icon (top right)->Manage Addons;
2. Select Search Providers;
3. Change the default search engine to Bing or Google;
4. If any of these search providers is not available, follow “Find more search providers” in the bottom of the screen and install Google.

How to remove Hot-finder.com virus from Firefox:

1. Enter “about:config” in url bar. This will open settings page;
2. Type “Keyword.url” in the search box. Right click and reset it;
3. Type “browser.search.defaultengine” in the search box. Right click it and reset it;
4. Type “browser.search.selectedengine” in the search box. Right click it and reset it;
5. Type “browser.startup.homepage” in the search box. Right click it and reset;
6. Search for “browser.newtab.url”. Right-click and reset. This will make sure that the search page won’t launch on every new tab;
7. If the settings revert and scan with anti-malware programs are clean: close Firefox, open file explorer and enter %AppData% in the address bar. Enter user.js in the search box. If this file exists, rename it and start Firefox again. You will have to repeat the steps above.

How to remove Hot-finder.com virus from Google Chrome:

1. Click on the 3 horizontal lines icon on the browser toolbar;
2. Select Settings;
3. Select Basics ->Manage Search engines;
4. Remove unnecessary search engines from the list;
5. Go back to Settings. On Startup choose ‘Open blank page’ (you can remove undesired pages from the set pages link too);
6. If your New Tab page is hijacked, you will have to scan with anti-malware program or use New Tab Redirect extension from Chrome Store.

Remove shortcut hijack (all browsers) (optional):

If your browser opens Hot-finder.com page on startup only, try this:

1. Right click on your browser icon. Choose Properties;
2. Open Short cut tab;
3. Delete Hot-finder.com part from target field.

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