Weather Waves - How to remove

Weather Waves, aka WeatherWaves.co, is an add-on that looks useful, but is actually just a browser hijacker. It replaces your browser’s home page with WeatherWaves.co for no reason other than to hijack your internet searches. Weather Waves makes Yahoo.com return your search results, spams you with pop-up ads, and reads your browsing history to know which ads are most effective on you. And, worst of all, Weather Waves is advertised dishonestly and may even trick some people into installing it accidentally.

Details on Weather Waves:

Type of threat	Adware, browser hijacker.
How Weather Waves spreads	Advertised on weather sites, promoted by adware viruses and browser hijackers.
Problems with browser hijackers	Take over your browser settings, expose you to low-quality ads, spy on your browsing history.
How to remove Weather Waves	Uninstall unwanted browser extensions, remove malware if you find any (scan with Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for PC, etc.), block unwanted notifications.

Issues with Weather Waves

Deceptive installation

So, Weather Waves can be found on Weatherwaves.co. Weatherwaves.co offers you to check the local weather forecast. It detects your location and shows the current temperature. Then it offers you to “Continue”. But, instead of opening a page with the promised forecast, Weatherwaves.co tries to get you to install it in your browser as an extension!

Web browser extensions are little programs that change how your browser works. In theory, they’re supposed to add useful features. But Weather Waves is not useful whatsoever:

• it changes your new tab page and your homepage, taking away your ability to customize it,
• it sets the search box in your new tab to Yahoo.com no matter what your default search engine is,
• Weather Waves also reads your browsing history.

Weather Waves also reads your location, but that’s to be expected of a weather app.

This behavior – hijacking your home page, pushing a particular search engine, deceiving people into installing the extension – is just like a browser hijacker. That’s why Weather Waves shouldn’t be used.

Installation

Here’s another issue. Weatherwaves.co sometimes appears as an ad in hijacked search results on sites like Hidemysearches.com and Kensaq.com. These sites have their own problems:

• they often engage in promoting browser hijackers and other malware,
• they are themselves promoted by adware.

This means that, in a roundabout way, Weather Waves is pushed by adware. Many of its victims might have already had infected browsers before finding Weather Waves.

Other distribution methods exist, too. Sometimes Weather Waves is advertised on legitimate weather sites. It might also be bundled with some free programs as an optional offer, so anyone who blinks during the setup process might accidentally allow a bunch of toolbars to be installed in their browser.

Weather Waves is no better than Flight Tab Pro, Safeplex Search, Search Anything, and other browser extensions made by Innover Group. They seem to only exist to get people to go to Yahoo – and not to offer useful features.

How to remove Weather Waves

Uninstalling Weather Waves is straightforward enough, you just need to go to your browser settings, the extension section. Or not even that, as you can remove extensions by simply right-clicking their icons and choosing “Remove” from the drop-down menu. More detailed instructions for removing extensions from your browser are posted below. If you run into the Enterprise Policy bug, check this post.

To check your computer for malware, it’s advisable to run a scan on it with an antivirus application, like Combo Cleaner for macOS, Spyhunter for Windows, etc. If anything is found, check the scan results carefully.

If Weather Waves is sending you pop-up ads in your browser, then check this post on how to block notifications from annoying sites.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Browser extension manual removal

TopRemoving Weather Waves 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 Weather Waves. Click on the trash bin icon next to Weather Waves 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 Weather Waves, 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 Weather Waves 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 Weather Waves. Click on the "Remove" icon next to Weather Waves 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 Weather Waves 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 Weather Waves 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 Weather Waves, 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.