Nearbyme.io Search Hijacker - How to remove

Nearbyme.io is an alternative search engine. It shows up thanks to infected browser extensions.

While Nearbyme.io is not harmful, it can be frustrating. It lacks useful features, it logs user data, and most people do not choose to use it. Nearbyme.io just hijacks their searches.

Luckily, it should be simple to stop Nearbyme.io from interfering with your browsing. Just find the extension that has changed your search settings and uninstall it.

About Nearbyme.io:

Threat type	Browser hijacker, adware.
Symptoms of a Nearbyme.io infection	Your browser opens M.nearbyme.io/search unexpectedly, the search results tend to show a lot of ads.
What causes the search redirects	Newly installed browser extensions, recently updated browser add-ons.
How to stop redirects to Nearbyme.io	Find and remove unwanted add-ons that interfere with search settings, use anti-malware apps to find and remove malware (Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, etc.).

What causes Nearbyme.io to hijack your search?

Browser extensions are opening Nearbyme.io

Nearbyme.io is an alternative search engine that might hijack your browser. If you recently started seeing Nearbyme.io open in your browser, here are a few signs associated with it:

• Nearbyme.io appears unexpectedly as it returns your internet search results.
• You didn’t intentionally change your search settings.
• You recently installed a browser extension, another program, or one of your extensions had an update.

That’s right, Nearbyme.io comes with a browser extension. Maybe you accidentally installed an infected browser extension, or maybe one of your old trusty add-ons just got a shady monetization feature implemented.

You can check which extension is interfering with your search settings by opening the search engine settings in your browser.

At the bottom of this post are instructions for checking your search engine and for removing browser extensions.

If no extension is listed there, then it’s still possible that one is messing with your searches. Some browser add-ons use the “read your browsing history” permission to open and close browser tabs.

Why do browser extensions do this?

Why do add-ons force their users to go to Nearbyme.io to see their search results?

It’s not because of Nearbyme.io’s amazing features – it doesn’t have any. And people clearly don’t want to be forced to visit this site, as I can only find complaints about Nearbyme.io online.

Here’s what the people behind Nearbyme.io want:

• They hijack search traffic to make money. If someone controls a website, they can make money from ads on that site.
• In addition, the operators of the site can see the search data of the visitors, which is quite valuable. It can be sold to data companies and/or used for targeted advertising.

Nearbyme.io’s privacy policy can be found on Airfind.com. It says that users’ location, browsing history, data about which ads they click is collected and may be combined with data from other companies. It can be used to show you targeted ads.

 

By the way, Airfind is related to a few other hijackers, such as Search.clarobuscar.com, Search.my-search.online, Smartsrch.com, and others.

Is Nearbyme.io dangerous?

As you can see on Nearbyme.io, it’s “enhanced by Google”. Google allows people and companies to use its technology to make their own little search engines, which is what Nearbyme.io is.

In theory, people should be creating innovative search engines with cool features, or very specialized search engines for niche users and topics.

However, some people just make the most basic search engine possible, no new features or anything to make it worth using, set it to show ads, and then put it in a browser extension.

Nearbyme.io is not dangerous on its own. It’s just a worse version of Google. That said, it does show low-quality ads, such as links for Izito, Zapmeta, and similar sites. These sites show more ads – for browser hijackers, clickbait sites, and similar sites. These sites can indeed lead to scams and malware.

So, even though Nearbyme.io is not dangerous, it can raise your chances of ending up on dangerous sites.

Here’s an example of an ad on Nearbyme.io, one that implied that I would get a photo editor – but instead it consistently opened a site advertising bags:

This sort of thing happens on other search engines, too. But it seems to be more common on alternative search engines like Nearbyme.io.

How to stop the Nearbyme.io search hijacker

Some of the extensions that open Nearbyme.io might be Audio Voice Recorder Pro, Appstation WebCamera Snapshot, Torrent Search Engine For Chrome Pro, and others. At first glance, normal extensions with legitimate features.

Review your add-ons and remove unwanted ones as described in the instructions below.

You can also find malware with an anti-malware app, like Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, etc.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove browser extensions and restore search settings

TopHow To remove Nearbyme.io Search 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 Nearbyme.io Search 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 Nearbyme.io Search 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 Nearbyme.io Search 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 Nearbyme.io Search 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 Nearbyme.io Search 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 Nearbyme.io Search 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.