Searchsio Browser Virus - How to remove

Searchsio is a browser add-on made by Webcoapps to deliver “The best way to search”. It takes over the browser and makes search queries go to Yahoo, regardless of what your search settings you had before. Searchsio not only tries to control how you search the web, it also reads your browsing history and shows you pop-up ads. The cherry on the cake is that Searchsio is advertised using malicious pop-ups. It’s likely that most of its victims don’t even know what happened – only that pop-ups from Searchsio.com started spamming them and Yahoo started delivering their search results.

Searchsio deserves to be called browser virus because of its unethical actions:

Classification	Adware, browser hijacker.
How Searchsio gets installed	Deceptive pop-up ads recommend installing it.
Changes that the browser virus makes	Sets a new search engine that opens Yahoo, reads your browsing history, reads your search queries.
Removing Searchsio	Uninstall Searchsio browser virus, look for and remove malware (Spyhunter for Windows, Combo Cleaner for macOS, etc.), block notification pop-ups from Searchsio.com.

Searchsio sets Feed.searchsio.com as the default search engine in your browser settings. That setting then can’t be changed as long as Searchsio is installed. Through Feed.searchsio.com, the queries are sent over to Yahoo and then returned from there. Yahoo is used by lots of browser hijackers, so Searchsio isn’t always the culprit – but it’s almost always some browser extension.

Searchsio can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store, not the first time that a malicious extension is found on the Chrome Web Store, but nobody does that. For one, you can’t even find the extension by searching for its name – you need a direct link to the store.

To get the direct link, one has to see a pop-up ad for Install.searchsio.com. These ads mostly use the Recommended Extension template. This template is used to promote a bunch of different extensions, including Stream All, PDF Maker, Video Converterz, and others. It’s meant to make it look like you need the recommended browser extension before you can resume browsing.  Make it look like the extension is needed before you can download a file or watch a video.

No surprise then that the Searchsio pop-ups appear on file download sites, URL shorteners, and free video streaming sites (Uii.io, Todaytvseries2.com, etc.). People may see the pop-up for Searchsio, install it, and not quite realize that they invited an adware virus on their browser.

So, Searchsio gets installed. If you open its main page, Portal.searchsio.com, it offers a PDF converter tool (which is useless because every program lets you export files as PDFs), a currency converter and a separate Bitcoin converter, a calculator, and a pseudo-bookmarking function. Honestly, all these tools are so redundant and useless that it’s baffling that they even exist.

Searchsio Basically the same as Utilitool and all the other browser hijackers by Webcoapps. I say that Searchsio is made by Webcoapps because that’s the privacy policy that’s available in Searchsio’s Chrome Web Store page. This puts Searchsio in the same family as PDFPros, Speedomizer, LivePDFConverter, RadioFanatics, and a bunch of other browser viruses.

If we read between the lines of Searchsio’s privacy policy, we learn that the information it collects about you, including your “search logs” (everything that you search for on the internet) may be used for “legitimate interest of operating the service”, which includes “direct marketing”. Do you see pop-up ads from Searchsio.com? It asks you to enable notifications when you visit it, which can later be abused to send unwanted ads.

Remove Searchsio

To get rid of Searchsio, you need to open your browser settings and remove Searchsio – or right-click the extension’s icon and choose “Remove”. If that somehow doesn’t work, if you wish to check your device for malware, or if you want to remove Searchsio automatically, you could use Spyhunter for PC, Combo Cleaner for Mac, or another trusted anti-malware program.

You should definitely scan your device if you suffer excessive ads in general or if you see random redirects and pop-ups even on high-quality sites. Adware infections can mess with your browser and the first solution is not to block ads (though it can help) – it’s to find and remove the adware.

This won’t stop the pop-ups from Searchsio.com. To get rid of them, you can disable notifications from that URL. Find Searchsio in the list of sites that you have allowed to send you notifications:

• Chrome – type “chrome://settings/content/notifications” in the address box.
• Safari – in the Safari menu, choose Preferences, Websites, Notifications.
• New 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

Manually uninstall malicious extensions

TopHow To remove Searchsio Browser 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 Searchsio Browser 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.