Tailsearch.com Redirects - How to remove

Tailsearch.com is a shady site that’s been hijacking people’s searches. It spreads with malicious browser add-ons. It’s related to Searchdimension.com, Search-checker.com, Keysearchs.com.

Tailsearch.com harms privacy by allowing every single search query to be logged by a third-party site. In addition, it ignores your browser’s search engine settings, redirecting all users to the same site.

The site is part of a search hijacking scheme. Its redirects are caused by a browser add-on that has no other functions besides logging your URLs and opening Tailsearch.com. Once the add-on is removed, the Tailsearch.com redirects will stop.

About Tailsearch.com:

Type of threat	Adware, browser hijacker.
The cause behind Tailsearch.com redirects	A browser add-on reads your search queries and opens Tailsearch.com, the add-on is not very visible and its permissions are modest, so it’s not noticeable.
Effects on the browser	Search queries are logged by a third-party site, harming privacy, using a search engine other than Google becomes difficult as Tailsearch.com always loads Google.com.
Removing Tailsearch.com	Uninstall browser add-ons that are causing problems, scan your computer for malware (Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for Macs, Spyhunter for PCs, etc.) and remove it.

What is Tailsearch.com?

Tailsearch.com comes with a browser extension

Tailsearch.com is a fake search site. If it hijacked your browser, then it briefly appears in your address bar when you search the internet. It only appears for a moment before immediately redirecting to another site that displays your search results.

There are plenty of sites and add-ons that try to take control over your searches. Besides Tailsearch.com, you also have Coldsearch.com, Searchbenny, Surf-live.com, etc.

I first encountered Tailsearch.com while trying out various shady browser add-ons. The first such add-on was Pure Search. It is a small add-on with no unique icon, no developer contacts, and no privacy policy. Its description was a soup of lines stolen from the descriptions of other browser add-ons. It certainly did not mention Tailsearch.com in the description.

When I installed Pure Search, it only asked to read my search history. That single permission was enough for it to hijack internet search!

Other malicious hijackers that spread Tailsearch.com have names like Muti-Webtool, Online Searcher, Dosearch Lite, Movie Tab, and others. If you find a suspicious hijacker like this installed, it’s recommended to remove it.

It hijacks web search

When Tailsearch.com takes over your browser, it doesn’t matter if your default search engine was Google, Bing.com, Yahoo.com, or something else. Tailsearch.com directs searches to whatever sites it wants to.

If you use a less popular search engine, like DuckDuckGo or Ecosia, your searches might escape being hijacked by Tailsearch.com even when a malicious browser extension is installed.

Here’s how the Tailsearch.com scheme works:

• The malicious browser add-on detects that you’re trying to search on Google or another popular search engine.
• It reads your URL, which includes the search query, and sends it to an analytics website together with your user ID.
• The add-on strips your search query from the URL of your current tab. It sends the query to Tailsearch.com.
• The extension opens Tailsearch.com with your search query in a new browser tab. At the same time, it closes the old tab with your search results.
• Finally, Tailsearch.com redirects to another site that displays your search results.

The visits to Tailsearch.com don’t appear in your browser’s search history.

It logs your data

Most likely, the Tailsearch.com hijacker is meant to spy on users and collect their search history. This data is valuable for advertisers.

Unsurprisingly, Tailsearch.com’s About page claims that the site is by an online marketing company, FFONE. Tailsearch.com’s privacy policy mentions that logged data may be used for marketing purposes and shared with advertisers.

Ever since search engines like Google started encrypting user searches back in 2013, marketers were unable to tell how people got to their websites. But traffic is only encrypted when sent to the website. Meanwhile, the Tailsearch.com hijacker is right there, on your computer. It can see everything that you can see, including every URL and every search query.

How to stop Tailsearch.com redirects

To get rid of Tailsearch.com, open your browser’s extension settings and look at all the add-ons that you have installed. Then, remove all that are unfamiliar to you and disable those that are suspicious. Keep disabling the add-ons until your browser behaves normally again. Do not spare add-ons just because you trust them – be suspicious of all of them.

To make sure that you didn’t get some malicious file downloaded on your computer, scan it with an anti-malware program, such as Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, and other programs. Delete malicious files, apps, and browser extensions.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Manage browser extensions and settings

TopHow To remove Tailsearch.com Redirects 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 Tailsearch.com Redirects, 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 Tailsearch.com Redirects from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Tailsearch.com Redirects 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 Tailsearch.com Redirects, 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.

How to remove Tailsearch.com Redirects 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 Tailsearch.com Redirects, 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 Tailsearch.com Redirects 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 Tailsearch.com 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.
  
• 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 Tailsearch.com 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.
  
• 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.