Safe Search - How to remove

Safe Search is a browser hijacker that changes the browser settings on the infected machine. It causes lots of inconveniences and disturbs your work. It mainly gets installed with some free tools without users’ knowledge.

Safe Search is meant to earn money for its creators by promoting various websites. However, it uses an unfair method to do it, so it is considered to be an unwanted program.

It is recommended to remove Safe Search virus either using an anti-malware program, like Spyhunter for Windows or Combo Cleaner for macOS, or manually. Since the latter method is quite challenging, we have developed a guide for how to do it and provided it below this article.

Type of threat	Adware, browser hijacker.
How Safe Search virus affects the browser	Redirects searches so that search results are returned by unexpected sites, includes excessive ads in the results, logs your browsing data.
Possible dangers	Lacing functionality in the search engine, low-quality ads that are potentially dangerous, compromised privacy, restricted browser customization options.
How to remove Safe Search virus	Uninstall all suspicious browser extensions manually or remove malware with antivirus tools, such as Spyhunter for PC, Combo Cleaner for Mac, and others.

About Safe Search

Safesearch.net

By the way, this Safe Search virus is not to be confused with various tools and apps by security programs or Google Chrome’s Safe Search setting. The Safe Search virus that we’re discussing should not reflect badly on the tools that it shares its name with.

This Safe Search virus changes your homepage and default search engine to Safesearch.net. It also includes lots of sponsored links to your search results. Some of these links are low-quality and pose risk to get your system infected. It can easily redirect you to some compromised websites that contain malware infections. Additionally, Safe Search displays random pop up ads that are very annoying and distracting.

Right now, Safesearch.net is estimated to receive tens of thousands of visits each month. It is not especially popular, however, it’s not the only Safe Search virus out there.

Safe Search hijackers

There are several versions of this browser hijacker, so it can use slightly different names sometimes. You are recommended to remove Safe Search viruses from your system as they can bring lots of problems to you by interfering with searches and spreading potentially dangerous ads.

Another version of Safe Search virus that I recently encountered was a decentralized set of search engines associated with random websites. These Safe Search viruses replace your browser’s default search engine settings. Trying to search the internet by typing queries into the address box opens a Safe Search page that looks similar to Google.com at first glance, albeit with a lot more ads.

This Safe Search is spread by a variety of browser extensions. It can be used by them to make a bit of advertising money. It’s not necessarily malicious. But to people who install it without meaning to, it’s frustrating.

Search redirect

Yet another Safe Search virus is a browser extension called “Safe Search” offered by Superappbox. This one is nothing but a Yahoo redirect. Supposedly, it lets you search “safely” by starting your queries with ‘s’.

There’s also one Safe Search virus that would get installed by other applications. It would check the security of the sites that you visit, redirect searches, and communicate with a suspicious server. Overall, very similar to the Safe Browsing family.

Distribution Methods of Safe Search

If you want to avoid Safe Search virus and similar applications getting access to your browsers, you should be very attentive when installing any free programs from the internet and refuse to install any unknown programs on your computer. Whenever a site takes you to the Chrome Web Store, tells you to allow notifications, asks you to download and install software to use a website, pause and think. It could just be malicious actors. They would say anything to get people to install their malware.

Safe Search often comes bundled to free music of video players, download managers, PDF creators, and other apps. Check the reliability of the sources of your downloads. Some sites package all of their installers with junkware. Better to stay away from them because they might pose risks worse than just the relatively mild Safe Search virus.

If you have already noticed the activity of SafeSearch on your browser, I recommend removing it from there. Even if it doesn’t bother you much, the excessive ads waste time and screen space. Follow the guide provided below and remove each browser extension that is suspicious. Or run a full system scan with an anti-malware program and remove Safe Search automatically, as well as check for other suspicious items on your device.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manual removal of Safe Search virus

How to remove SafeSearch using Windows Control Panel

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

Delete Safe Search from your applications.

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

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall SafeSearch 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 Safe Search, 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.

Manual removal