Index.about.com Ads - How to remove

Index.about.com is an alternative search engine that offers nothing but excessive and unhelpful ads. While Index.about.com is not dangerous, it can be frustrating if you have to deal with ads for it filling your internet search results. Ads for Index.about.com are likely caused by malicious browser extensions or other types of adware. You can find and remove the offending programs and you will stop seeing ads for Index.about.com.

Index.about.com is by Ask Media Group and it’s related to Kensaq.com, Top10answers.com, Faqtoids.com, as well as MyWay.com.

Index.about.com in short:

Type of threat	Potentially unwanted program, adware.
Problems with Index.about.com	Too many ads, irrelevant ads, lack of features.
How the site spreads	Ads in search results, redirects and injected ads by browser extensions.
How to stop Index.about.com ads	Check browser extensions and remove suspicious ones, find and remove malware (with Spyhunter for PC, Combo Cleaner for Mac, other tools, or manually), restore browser settings.

Problems with Index.about.com

Lack of features

Index.about.com is a search engine. You can use it to search the internet for information. Index.about.com finds and displays relevant webpages in its search results, just like Google, Bing, and other search engines. But unlike the mainstream search engines, Index.about.com has no features (tools, settings, etc.) to filter the search results and so it’s not really suited for regular internet searching.

Despite having no features for managing search results, and despite not being well-known, Index.about.com gets more than two million visitors each month.

Unwanted appearance

I found Index.about.com through its association with various low-quality search engines, such as Hidemyhistory.co, Searchincognito.com, and Hidemysearches.com. These search engines are promoted by browser hijackers – browser extensions that force the user to visit affiliated sites and change their search engine rules.

This means that users might encounter Index.about.com through ads and links in other search engine sites. This could explain why so many are visiting Index.about.com despite it lacking features and being pretty unknown.

I did see a couple of pages on Support.google.com (Link 1, Link 2) with questions by people who got these unwanted ads in their Google.com search results. It’s likely that malicious browser extensions were injecting ads into their search results. The ads look like normal ads, so it can be difficult to recognize them as being a result of adware.

Visits to Index.about.com might be completely accidental, too. If they’re rare, then you probably don’t need to worry about anything.

Low-quality ads

When Index.about.com loads the results, it takes a moment to also load the ads. These ads can be very frustrating – irrelevant, misleading, and so numerous that it’s hard to get to real search results.

For example, I searched for a popular program on Index.about.com. I got five ads on top of the results (which took up most of the screen):

• one ad for a competitor,
• two for online stores that were selling mostly irrelevant products,
• one for another search engine results page with ads (arbitrage),
• and one for a browser hijacker.

To be fair, many of the ads on Index.about.com are relevant. But when they’re bad, they’re bad for the user experience. Clicking on these ads only to get a bunch of irrelevant offers only wastes time. Especially when the ads just open Izito and Zapmeta pages. Ads for pages with more ads are not useful.

The browser hijackers that Index.about.com advertises are various MyWay browser extensions, like PackageTracer and MyImageConverter. Unsurprisingly, MyWay is part of the same company as Ask.com and Index.about.com belongs to the Ask Media Group. The hijackers promote related sites and the Ask.com website.

How to remove Index.about.com

If Index.about.com appears in your search results or if your internet searches lead you from one search results page to another, if you have to deal with irrelevant ads and with reloads of your search results, check your browser extensions. A malicious browser extension is the most likely cause of these problems.

You can use an anti-malware program, such as Spyhunter for Windows, Combo Cleaner for macOS, and others to detect suspicious apps, programs, and browser extensions. Or check your extensions manually. When you look into the details of each installed extension, you can see their permissions. Any extension that has access to your data on all the sites you visit, to some of the sites that you visit, or can manage your default search engine are suspicious.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove unwanted browser extensions

TopRemoving Index.about.com Ads 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 about Ads. Click on the trash bin icon next to Index.about.com Ads 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 about Ads, 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 Index.about.com Ads 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 Index.about.com Ads. Click on the "Remove" icon next to about Ads 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 Index.about.com Ads 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 about Ads 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 Index.about.com Ads, 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.