Shopping Lovers Ads and Redirects - How to remove

Shopping Lovers is a malicious add-on for web browsers. It injects ads into internet search results. It opens full-page ads on unfamiliar websites. And it randomly redirects web searches to Bing.com. In short, Shopping Lovers is adware. To stop Shopping Lovers from messing with your browser, uninstall it and any other suspicious extensions.

Shopping Lovers in short:

Type of threat	Adware, browser hijacker.
Shopping Lovers hijacking symptoms	New ads appear above web search results, pop-up windows open on their own, sometimes, unexpectedly, search results are delivered by Bing.com.
How adware add-ons are installed	Advertised online in a misleading way, installed by fake and infected installers.
How to get rid of Shopping Lovers	Uninstall all malicious and unwanted extensions manually, find and remove malware with antivirus apps (Spyhunter for PC, Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for Mac, Malwarebytes, others).

How Shopping Lovers injects ads into search results

Shopping Lovers is a browser add-on. It can be found on the Chrome Web Store. Currently, it seems to have been installed by more than a thousand users. Probably unintentionally, with the help of misleading ads, such as fake video players.

Once installed, Shopping Lovers is pretty much invisible. It has no useful features and no front, so people who installed it accidentally might not recognize what happened. Despite that, Shopping Lovers has undeniable effects on the browser that it infects:

• While Shopping Lovers is installed, it detects when you visit Google.com, Bing.com, and Yahoo.com. It injects ads into these websites, displaying them above the search results.
• It opens new browser windows and tabs with advertised content. This happens pretty often.
• Shopping Lovers can redirect search queries from Google and Yahoo to Bing. As far as I can tell, it only does this periodically. This can actually be stressful, for your browser to behave so unpredictably.
• Throughout, Shopping Lovers gets to read the search queries that it redirects. It can also read all of your browsing history. This is really bad for privacy, as your search terms and visited sites can include personal information (Browser extensions collect and sell data with almost no oversight).

If you want to check whether Shopping Lovers has injected ads into your search results, right-click the search results page, select the Inspect document option, and search for “Shoppinglovers.xyz”. If the ads are there, you should find an iframe element that belongs to Shoppinglovers.xyz, the website associated with the Shopping Lovers extension.

How adware extensions take over browsers

People don’t install malicious extensions voluntarily. Rather, they get tricked into doing it by malicious ads and by adware bundlers.

Shopping Lovers doesn’t have any useful features and it’s not advertised as such. Its description on the Chrome Web Store says that the extension adds a box with ads in your search results. It’s obvious from its description that it’s adware.

And yet, Shopping Lovers, as well as its siblings Hyper Search, Cheapy Peasy, Top Tab Engine, and others, somehow keep infecting browsers. How does it happen?

• Misleading advertisements. In their ads, malicious extensions are often made to look like they’re required or mandatory. Other malicious ads misrepresent entirely what is going to be installed. Deceptive installation tactics are a known problem (Taking Action on Deceptive Installation Tactics).
• Adware bundles. Fake Flash Player updates and similar warnings spread installers full of adware infections.
• Ads in freeware installers. Some free programs have ads in their installers (OfferCore). Some of those ads may promote browser hijackers.

It’s very possible to install Shopping Lovers without meaning to, especially if you don’t have a sensitive anti-malware app that would catch potentially unwanted programs, such as apps with infected installers.

How to get rid of Shopping Lovers

To stop all the ads and redirects done by Shopping Lovers, uninstall it. Check your other extensions, too. Remove all those that are unknown or suspicious.

You can use the help of anti-malware tools, like Spyhunter for PC, Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for Mac, Malwarebytes, and others. They can detect suspicious and malicious files and warn you about them.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Uninstall browser extensions

TopRemoving Shopping Lovers Ads and Redirects 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 Shopping Lovers Pop-Ups and Redirects. Click on the trash bin icon next to Shopping Lovers Ads and Redirects 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 Shopping Lovers Pop-Ups and Redirects, 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 Shopping Lovers Ads and Redirects 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 Shopping Lovers Ads and Redirects. Click on the "Remove" icon next to Shopping Lovers Pop-Ups and Redirects 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 Shopping Lovers Ads and Redirects 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 Shopping Lovers Pop-Ups and Redirects 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 Shopping Lovers Ads and Redirects, 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.