Omniboxes virus - How to remove

Omniboxes is the name of the website that is accessible at omniboxes.com. Basically this website is just a search box that transfers your search query to the Google and display legitimate results. So why we are talking about the website which is legitimate on the malware research website? Because of the way it is distributed and the methods employed to direct traffic to this particular website.

The term “Omnibox” itself means combined search and url entry box in browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox, that allows instant access to google results or opens page if it matches URL format. Some extensions can provide additional functionality to it as well. However, the omnibox.com hijacker has little to do with browser’s internal omnibox except the name and ability to hijack the browser. ComputerHope describes this entry box as an additional tool that can process searches and do mathematical calculations.

The homepage of Omniboxes virus is designed perfectly to match the design of Google – it is done in order to trick users into thinking that they are using a reliable search engine. However, every search submitted to Omniboxes is tracked and you can be redirected to any other website anytime.

Problems regarding Omniboxes

Even though this tool might look like reliable and useful one, there are some specific features why we categorise it as a malware. For the same reason users prefer not to have it installed on a computer, yet sometimes struggle to get rid of it.

User “Kostis” is describing a pretty common scenario regarding Omniboxes virus on TomsGuide forum:

Hi guys,
so I made a mistake and downloaded a bundle with a .exe file. Then I made another one and installed it. After my display stuttered a little bit, I noticed that something was wrong. When I went to Chrome, I noticed that the homepage was omniboxes.net and the browser itself was full of ads. I went and reset Windows uninstalling all programs and cleaning the hard drive straight away. But after I logged in into my Microsoft account and went to IE, the homepage was still the same omniboxes thing. However it had an instruction about uninstalling this add – on as it turned out to be. But my question is – is my computer and particularly browsing safe? Or is it still somehow infected? I must know this as I do online transactions and etc. on my PC. AVG scan showed nothing but a few tracking cookies.

This entry basically describes everything that is wrong with this tool. It can be listed either as a browser hijacker or adware infection, yet we prefer description of browser hijacker for this one. First of all, this tool is traveling as a bundle to free software. Users download some programs from the Internet for free and Omniboxes extension comes as bundle to it. Obviously you can disable this feature during the installation, but the problem is that users tend to run through the installations without paying much of the attention. This way computers get infected with this annoying application.

Order of events after the installation is clear – all your web browsers will be modified and you probably won’t be happy about that. Homepage will be set to omniboxes.com, you will see additional advertisements and address box will be replaced with Omnibox, regardless you like it or not.

Technical information and removal instructions

This product was developed by SuperNet Technology Co. Limited and we believe that it’s not the only malicious product they have released to the surface. For instance, mysites123.com virus looks exactly the same and perform same malicious actions. In addition to that, there are other tools that are exactly the same as omniboxes.com, such as Mystartsearch.com virus. Their privacy policy states that Finder Digital Media was original developer of this software, though we can’t find any registration copies of this company, thus it might be that there is one same legal person behind both of these companies, distributing the same infection by the different name.

Domain of Omniboxes malware was registered back in 2015 and this malware has been active ever since. Other details of registration are hidden, thus that’s not a good sign as well. However, the company itself is registered at UNIT 17, 9/F., HO KING COMMER CIAL CENTRE 2-16 FA YUEN STREET MONGKOK KL, HONG KONG.

Another technical problem regarding Omniboxes – it might be really difficult to ditch the cookies deployed by this infection. That means your activity will be tracked long after you remove the virus itself. For this particular reason we suggest to get yourself trustworthy anti-malware tool to do this removal job – it will make sure that everything that needs to be removed will be removed.

You can use either Spyhunter for this task. Both of these applications should deal with Omniboxes hijacker just perfectly. On the other hand, if you think that there is no need to download no anti-malware software, manual removal of this infection is possible too. It might require some advanced cyber security knowledge, therefore we have developed a step-by-step Omniboxes manual removal guide to assist you – check it out below this article.

If there is any questions regarding this virus, you can always ask them in the comments box below the post.

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How to remove Omniboxes virus using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Omniboxes virus 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 Omniboxes virus . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Omniboxes 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 Omniboxes virus from macOS

Delete Omniboxes virus from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the Omniboxes virus 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 Omniboxes virus 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 Omniboxes virus, 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 Omniboxes virus 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 Omniboxes virus 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 Omniboxes virus, 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 Omniboxes virus 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 Omniboxes virus, 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 Omniboxes virus from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Omniboxes virus 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 Omniboxes virus, 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.