Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com Hijacker - How to remove

Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com is a newtab virus – it replaces the browser’s new tab page so that it can advertise on it. And though Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com does deliver an interactive map to search for directions, it’s not enough to make up for the advertising and spying that it does: logging searches, redirecting searches, showing pop-up ads. Besides, it appears that Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com spreads in such a way that people install it unknowingly and without meaning to, then they want to get rid of it but can’t.

Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com

Classification	Browser hijacker.
Problems with Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com	Logs user data, including search queries, ads and results clicked, and some technical information about your computer and uses that information to target ads, takes over the new tab page in the browser and puts advertising links on it.
How Maps & Driving Directions spreads	Deceptively advertised online, promoted by adware, bundled with free installers.
Removing Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com	Uninstall Maps & Driving Directions, find and remove other unwanted apps and extensions (Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, others), block notifications from sites that abuse them to show pop-up ads.

Is Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com dangerous?

Ads on the new tab

Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com is the website associated with the Maps & Driving Directions extension. These two together make a browser hijacker – the sort of extension that makes unhelpful and unwanted changes to the browser in order to manipulate the user.

In Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com’s case, it has a few too many ads and links to affiliated sites. Many of the links that it features open clickbait sites:

• Weather, news, video, email, and maps links on Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com lead to clickbait (mostly RevContent) filled sites that belong to the very same company that made Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com (Eightpoint Technologies).
• There’s also a search box in the middle of Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com that is for searching the internet, however, it ignores your search engine settings and only uses Yahoo.

As Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com opens in your browser when you open a new tab, it’s nearly unavoidable. These ads that it features are then also in front of your eyes every time you use your browser. If you’re very careful, you can avoid them. A less careful person might click on the offered links and then start drowning in get-rich-quick schemes and diet pill ads. Either way, some time is wasted.

Privacy problems

Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com has a privacy policy and in it is a list of data that’s collected about each user. This data includes:

• Search queries (what you type in the search box) and when they were performed.
• Which ads and search results you clicked on.
• Which buttons you clicked on while on the Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com new tab page.
• Your IP address.
• Your browser and some other software and hardware data.

One of the ways this data can be used is to help advertisers and publishers (sites on which ads are shown) to offer you relevant content (advertise based on your interests).

Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com does feature an interactive map that displays a route between two points. But it’s not all that cnvenient compared to opening a map tab from, for example, the default Google Chrome new tab. Not worth all the ads put on the new tab.

How Maps & Driving Directions spreads

Maps & Driving Directions has more than 300,000 users on the Chrome Web Store.

It’s barely got any reviews, though, and a few of them are unhappy with Maps & Driving Directions interrupting their work and even being installed at all.

It is common for adware extensions to be installed on people’s browsers without their permission:

• When extensions are bundled with the installers of other apps, they’re very easy to miss.
• When ads for browser extensions are dishonestly designed to look like download links and download buttons. Sometimes, search engine ads take in your query and reflect it to make it look like it’s the thing that you were searching for.
• Ads for adware extensions are sometimes shown by other adware extensions. For example, Maps & Driving Directions is promoted by related extensions as an “Important Update”. If you don’t read the fine print, you might install it by accident.

Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com is estimated to have a lot of common traffic with Hidemysearches.com, which is a search hijacker that takes over your search engine (as opposed to Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com, which is a new tab hijacker).

How to remove Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com

Uninstall Maps & Driving Directions. The instructions for removing browser extensions can be found in the following section, at the bottom.

Remove other extensions that might have been installed with Maps & Driving Directions, such as Hide My Searches, Search Incognito, and Search Encrypt. You can also use antivirus programs (Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, and others) to check for potentially unwanted programs.

Either way, remove all adware until your browser behaves like you think it should. Check the search engine and new tab in your browser settings.

If you can’t remove Maps & Driving Directions because your browser is managed or the Remove button is missing or grayed out, then you might find our post on extensions that abuse enterprise policies helpful.

Another potential issue is pop-up ads from Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com and other sites. Notifications are often used by malicious sites to spread ads. Even after Maps & Driving Directions is uninstalled, Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com might still use notifications to show pop-ups on your screen. If that happens, check out our post on blocking notifications in your browser settings.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Restore browser settings

TopHow To remove Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com 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 Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com 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 Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com 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 Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com 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 Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com 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 Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com 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 Mapsanddrivingdirectionstab.com 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.