Myway hijacker - How to remove

Myway hijacker is a semi-malicious browser plugin family developed by Mindspark that presents itself as a genuine search tool and new tab tool. The program is advertisement-supported and will show ads in the New Tab page.

Mindspark Interactive Network is a legitimate company, but it chose unacceptable marketing tactics. Even public information on Wikipedia confirms that this company is responsible for the distribution of browser hijackers and PUPs (potentially unwanted programs). Their products are not entirely malware, but it is crucial to constitute that digital apps, belonging to Myway collection, can invade Internet surfers’ privacy and violate their personal affairs. This application first appeared back in 2016 and a lot of users are complaining that they can’t get rid of www.hp.myway.com website constantly appearing on their web browsers.

This happens when a Mindspark product hijacks a user’s browser, often without their knowledge. The browser’s home page changes and search queries go to different pages than before. The redirections give Myway more traffic and allow it to be more profitable, but they don’t provide any benefit to users or enhance their experience in any way. In fact, most people are annoyed with Myway’s pages showing up in their browser.

Myway comes in many forms, but the symptoms are similar in each case:

Symptoms of a Myway hijacker	New home page of the browser. Different search results page. Lower quality of search results. Unusually high number of ads. Pages redirected unexpectedly.
Examples of Myway hijacker plugins	FreeLocalWeather, OnlineWorkSuite, VideoConverterHD, ShoppingDealsLive, PDFConverterHQ, PDFConvertTools, GiffySocial, FreePDFCombiner, CryptoPriceSearch, HomeWorkSimplified, GetPoliticalNews
Sources of the infections	Free programs that bundle offers. Misleading ads. Adware virus redirects and pop-ups. Organic search. Email spam and ads. Social network spam and ads.
Removal	Scan your computer with an anti-malware program (Spyhunter). Remove the offending plugins. Reset browser settings. Improve computer and browser security.

 

Myway.com uses several pages. For USA customers, it is hp.myway.com. For people from other countries, it might be something like intl.myway.com or similar. The homepage is remodeled according to a specific product from Mindspark. FileShareFanatic, RecipeKart, and MyTransitMapper all have original Myway.com versions that visualize icons of these browser extensions. Mostly all add-ons function as toolbars, but provide an additional service of a search engine and assign it as browsers’ preferences.

This is occasionally done without users’ approval. The bigger percentage of deceitful search tools demonstrate results in an Int.search.myway.com page. We have found some evidence to suggest that these search results, even though enhanced by Google, by also be altered by other browser hijackers like Discretesearch.com and Iwebs.site.

However, the latter searching service has many other subdomains: it is quite difficult to count them all. One of the most popular are as follows: Search.myway.com, Hp.myway.com, Dl.myway.com, Wallpaper.myway.com, Results.myway.com, Webmail.myway.com. The last utility will be closed down on the 2nd of October, 2017. In fact, with new and improved extensions coming out regularly, Mindspark does not see the advantage of continuing to support its older products, like Inspiring Backgrounds, and they might get shut down or abandoned.

Myway.com did not obtain the 160th position in the global ranking system on its own: it had some help to reach the top. Products of Mindspark are blooming in the United States of America, India, and Brazil, but we have our suspicion that the competitive apps are cheating and exploiting misleading techniques to grab more consumers. These techniques include bundling the toolbars with free software, promoting them in spam e-mails and social networks, and using extremely aggresive ads online.

Much like its partners, hp.myway.com collects detailed data about the behavior of its users — such as their search query text, search history, location, gender, and age — for marketing purposes, to make it easier for Myway’s partners to implement targeted advertising.

Speaking of the ad-networks that have become loyal partners of Mindspark, we have found out that majority of the ad-serving platforms have been criticized for distributing objectionable promotional content. Propeller Ads Media is one of the networks that have been on the radar of security researchers, together with Adcash service. These networks have been used to advertise not just Mindspark, but other PUP products, and even tech support scams.

There are ways to reduce the number of PUPs that you are exposed to, such as only downloading programs from reputable and first-party sources, updating your browser, and being suspicious of ads and unsolicited offers. But it’s almost impossible to completely avoid Myway when it’s marketed so aggressively.

Landing page of Myway hijacker – hp.myway.com

Once inside, Myway hijacker takes over your web browser and sets your new tab page to hp.myway.com. This website is not safe and displays tons of ads in the first page of your search results. In fact, you have to scroll way down to see the real (and not sponsored) results there. Later versions of the searches might be redirected to other search engines too, depending on how much they choose to pay to Mindspark.

Once you get infected by Myway hijacker, you will notice that your homepage was replaced to Search.myway.com. Although it says that its search engine is enhanced by Google, if you try using it, you will see that there is no way you can trust it because Myway modifies the results according to its needs. The program changes the color scheme of sponsored results to match close the organic results so it is harder to distinguish between the two.

On top of that, you will notice plenty of ads while you browse the web that also contain links to sponsored pages. Most of the ads displayed by Myway hijacker are insecure and they contain links to compromised websites. For this reason, if you have noticed that any of your browsers have been affected by this hijacker, you should immediately remove it from your computer and reset your Internet browser settings.

Additionally, during the install procedure, you are asked to set your search engine settings to an engine their promote. Typically, it is Ask.com, which is legitimate but has had some problems — for a while, it was unwittingly distributing malware. We do not recommend switching to any search engine promoted by Mindspark.

Deceptive methods used to distribute Myway

The Myway hijacker can infiltrate into your system bundled with various freeware from the Internet. It can come alongside various music or video players, download managers, PDF creators, etc. We highly recommend paying more attention to your downloads from the Internet. It is the best way to avoid potentially unwanted programs. You should always opt for Custom installation mode, follow every installation step and never allow to make any changes in your system that can cause unknown consequences. Avoid adding any suspicious applications as you may end up creating a lot of problems in your system.

As it is stated by ZDNet,  unwanted bundled software might be even more dangerous than actual, typical malware: “59 percent of bundles are flagged by at least one antivirus engine as potentially unwanted, and that some packages are built not to install when the presence of antivirus has been detected.”

You should never trust this fake search engine and if it happened that it has taken over your browsers, you must remove Myway hijacker as soon as possible. We recommend running a full system scan with a reputable anti-malware program. Manual removal instructions are provided below this article.

To remove Myway hijacker, first of all, you will have to remove My Way Search Assistant or another Mindspark plugin from your system. Then we recommend scanning your computer with a reputable antispyware program, for example, Spyhunter (PC) or Combo-Cleaner (Mac) to ensure that your system is completely clean. Finally, reset your search settings on your browser. Below you will find an explanation of how to do it.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manual removal of Myway hijacker

How to remove Myway virus using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Hp.myway.com install some of their components as regular Windows programs as well as additional software. This part of malware can be uninstalled from the Control Panel. To access it, do the following.

• Start→Control Panel (older Windows) or press Windows Key→Search and enter Control Panel and then press Enter (Windows 8, Windows 10).
• Choose Uninstall Program (if you don't see it, click in the upper right next to "View by" and select Category).
• Go through the list of programs and select entries related to Myway hijacker . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Myway virus easier to find.
• Click the Uninstall button. If you're asked if you really want to remove the program, click Yes.
• In many cases anti-malware programs are better at detecting related parasites, thus I recommend installing Spyhunter to identify other programs that might be a part of this infection.

How to remove Myway hijacker from macOS

Delete Myway virus from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the Hp.myway.com app.
5. Select it and right-click it (or hold the Ctrl and click the left mouse button).
6. In the dropdown, click Move to Bin/Trash. You might be asked to provide your login password.

TopHow To remove Myway 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 Hp.myway.com, 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 Myway 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 Myway 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 Hp.myway.com, 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.

How to remove Myway 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 Hp.myway.com, 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 Myway hijacker from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Hp.myway.com and other suspicious extensions.
  
• If your homepage was changed, click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences and choose General tab. Enter preferable URL to the homepage field.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings(older versions) If you are still experiencing any issues related to Myway hijacker, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Reset Safari…
  
• Select which options you want to reset (usually all of them come preselected) and click on the Reset button.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.