Mapsassist.com Hijacker - How to remove

Mapsassist.com, or Maps Assist, is a browser extension that provides links to popular online maps. It’s supposed to help people generate directions and find routes. The problem is that Mapsassist.com also hijacks your browser to show you ads and makes you use Yahoo. It’s made by Innover Group, a company that monetizes mobile apps and browser extensions, and is exclusive to the USA. Mapsassist.com is similar to Mapsnow.co and many other browser hijackers.

Mapsassist.com is not a useful program and should be removed:

Classification	Potentially unwanted program, adware, browser hijacker.
Problems with Mapsassist.com	Reads your search queries, hijacks your new tab page, tries to get you to use Yahoo search.
Distribution and installation	Bundling with free programs, advertising on map-related websites, advertising on alternative search engines.
Mapsassist.com removal	Remove or disable all suspicious and unused browser extensions, block notifications form unwanted websites, scan your computer for malware (Combo Cleaner for Mac OS, SpyHunter for Windows, etc.).

Signs of a Mapsassist.com takeover

Mapsassist.com replaces your new tab page. The address is Mapsassist.com/newtab/v1/[random]. This page has a search bar in the middle, a pop-up at the top that lets you type in addresses to look for directions, and links to Google Maps and Mapquest. It’s remarkably useless:

• The Google new tab page, which is many people’s default, already has links to Maps – as well as to a dozen other apps.
• It doesn’t really save time or clicks to have a pop-up to type addresses in because Mapsassist.com redirects you to another site anyway.
• With Mapsassist.com, you lose the ability to customize your new tab page. Default browser new tabs let you pin your own quick links. Normal new tab extensions let you organize the page however you want. Mapsassist.com doesn’t give you anything.

On top of being useless, Mapsassist.com disrespects your privacy by capturing your search terms – the text you type in the search box provided by Mapsassist.com. This data is used for advertising. So, even though Maps Assist claims to not read your browsing history, it still gets a lot of data on your likes and interests. This is all based on Mapsassist.com’s privacy policy.

How Maps Assist gets installed

Maps Assist has no reviews and no ratings or the Chrome Web Store or on the Mozilla Add-ons store. Despite that, it has over forty thousand users over the two browsers. This is pretty suspicious because it’s one of the signs of a browser hijacker; it shows that the extension wasn’t always installed by users voluntarily. Although Mapsassist.com is presented as useful and practical, this image might be for the benefit of the moderators of the extension stores and not for users.

Mapsassist.com is advertised on online map sites, but I’ve also noticed that it can be found advertised on alternative search engines, like Ibrowsersearch, Hidemysearches, and Smart Search. These sites show you normal web search results, but they also have lots of ads. Not just normal ads, but ads for browser hijackers, other adware, and more strange web search sites. This means that your computer may have already been infected with adware before Mapsassist.com came along.

People find Mapsassist.com by searching for free driving directions and for Mapquest. Another Map-themed browser extension, GetEasyMaps, also tried to hijack Mapquest’s name to seem relevant. After all, Mapquest is legitimate and people trust it – unlike Mapsassist.com.

There’s another option for how Mapsassist.com got installed – bundling. Bundling is distributing a free program together with a few add-on programs and offering the add-ons during the installation of the free program. Usually, the distributor of the free program gets paid (up to a few dollars) for each successful installation of one of the add-ons. You can imagine the incentive to hide the add-ons to avoid you refusing them. You may not have wanted to install Mapsassist.com, but as long as the freeware distributor gets paid, they may not care. Potentially unwanted programs are distributed this way pretty often.

How to get rid of Mapsassist.com

You can remove Maps Assist form your browser on your own, just remember to check for other suspicious extensions, too. With browser extensions, it’s safest to disable those that you aren’t currently using and to only use the ones that you trust.

You can also use an anti-malware scanner, like Combo Cleaner for Macs, SpyHunter for PC, or another program that you trust. These applications can recognize not just malware, but also potentially unwanted and low-reputation programs and warn you about them. Then you can proceed with manual removal or use your anti-malware tool to remove malware automatically.

If Mapsassist.com is sending you notification pop-ups, visit this article to read how to stop them.

Automatic Malware removal tools

TopRemoving Mapsassist.com 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 Mapsassist.com. Click on the trash bin icon next to Mapsassist.com 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 Mapsassist.com, 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 Mapsassist.com 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 Mapsassist.com 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 Mapsassist.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.
  
• 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.