Search Anything Browser Hijacker - How to remove

Search Anything is a browser extension found on Searchanything.co and made by Innover Group. Although Search Anything is not malicious, it is quite suspicious – it changes your browser settings, reads your history, and sends you push notifications. Installing Search Anything in your browser does nothing to improve your experience and only helps the people behind Search Anything make some advertising money. Thus, Search Anything is considered a web browser hijacker.

In short about Search Anything:

Classification	Browser hijacker.
Problems with Search Anything	Hijacks your browser settings, reads your browsing history, shows unwanted ads.
Installation	Advertised by adware viruses, promoted by deceptive ads, installed by shady free programs.
Removing Search Anything	Remove all suspicious extensions from your browser, check your device for adware (Spyhunter for PC, Combo Cleaner for Mac, etc.), block notifications from Search Anything.

Problems with Search Anything

Search Anything is useful as a browser extension. All it does is change your search settings to Searchanything.co (which opens Yahoo.com) and read your browsing history. It may also show you pop-up ads, often for other browser extensions.

Search Anything is very much like Safeplex Search, Ezy Photo Tab, Maps Assist, and other browser extensions developed by Innover Group. You can find out who the developer is by reading the terms of service or privacy policy pages. These pages also outline what information is collected about you (your IP, other technical data) and what it’s used for (research, advertisements). It’s always a good idea to skim the privacy policy of the thing you’re about to install.

The issue with Search Anything is not that its creators make money by showing ads. It’s that the users are offered nothing useful. In the Chrome Web Store, Search Anything is described as a search engine. Its features include:

• access to web search,
• relevant search results,
• searching for images, videos, and information.

This is quite a stretch. Every search engine can offer you the same thing, from Google to DuckDuckGo to Ecosia. It’s just that Search Anything restricts which search engines you can use by hijacking your browser settings.

How Search Anything gets installed

There are a few ways that Search Anything gets installed, and none of them are thanks to good reviews or good word-of-mouth. That’s because Search Anything doesn’t have any reviews, which might mean that the people who installed Search Anything did it without realizing it.

Search Anything can be advertised by adware viruses that inject ads into your internet search results. These ads appear at the top of search results and trick people into installing the extension. But this could only have happened if you an adware virus before Search Anything.

Browser hijackers often promote other browser hijackers. If not by injecting ads into your search results, then with the help of push notifications or redirects. You might land on Searchanything.co with no idea of how you got there.

Dishonest installation is pretty common for browser hijackers:

• advertisements not making it clear that they’re for installing an extension, thus using buttons called “Continue” rather than “Install”,
• deceptive advertisements telling you to install an extension to get your search results,
• browser hijackers secretly bundled with free programs that you download off of the internet.

All in all, it’s pretty easy to end up with a browser extension without realizing it. At least until Search Anything starts messing with your settings.

How to remove Search Anything

You can get rid of Search Anything by right-clicking on its icon and choosing the “Remove” option. Uninstalling extensions from your browser is relatively easy, and there are more detailed instructions in the last section of this post. But the important thing is to find out which extensions need to be removed, as there might be some adware in your browser (besides Search Anything).

You can check extension permissions by clicking on the Details button – look for extensions that control your new tab, your search settings, or have access to sites like Google.com.

You can also use an anti-malware program, such as Spyhunter for Windows, Combo Cleaner for macOS, and others. Scan results will tell you if any suspicious or low-reputation programs were found on your computer.

And if Search Anything or any other site is still sending you notifications, you can stop them in browser settings, too. Next to the address of each site that sends you notifications, there’s a button that lets you choose to block it:

• Chrome – type “chrome://settings/content/notifications” in the address box.
• Edge – type “edge://settings/content/notifications” in the address box.
• Firefox – open Settings, Preferences, Privacy & Security, scroll down to Permissions, and click on Settings next to Notifications.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Uninstall unwanted browser extensions

TopRemoving Search Anything Browser 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 Search Anything Browser Extension. Click on the trash bin icon next to Search Anything Browser 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 Search Anything Browser Extension, 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.

How to remove Search Anything Browser Hijacker from Microsoft Edge:Top

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Microsoft Edge window. Select “Extensions”.

• Go through the extensions list and remove programs you do not need, especially similar to Search Anything Browser Hijacker. Click on the "Remove" icon next to Search Anything Browser Extension 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 Microsoft Edge.

TopRemoving Search Anything Browser 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 Search Anything Browser Extension 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 Search Anything Browser 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.