Yahoo! Powered Hijacker - How to remove

Yahoo! Powered is a type of redirect virus. Yahoo! Powered hijacks the installed browsers to set their default search engines to Yahoo. It does this by installing an add-on to those browsers (the add-on is also called Yahoo! Powered). This add-on changes your home and new tab page to Yahoo’s official search site,

Yahoo! Powered is a desktop app that affects Windows PCs and Macs. Yahoo! It gets bundled with various free programs, which causes users to install it without meaning to.

Yahoo! Powered in short:

Classification	Potentially unwanted program, browser hijacker.
How Yahoo! Powered affects your browser	It changes the default search engine, it replaces the home page, it collects information about its users.
How browser hijackers spread	Included in the installers of free programs.
How to remove Yahoo! Powered	Find and remove unwanted apps, programs, and browser extensions manually and with antivirus programs (Spyhunter for PC, Combo Cleaner for Mac, Spyhunter for Mac, etc.).

Problems caused by Yahoo! Powered

Yahoo! Powered (as well as Secured Yahoo! Powered, Yahoo! Powered Search, Search Powered by Yahoo!, etc.) does only a couple of things:

• Replace the default search engine with Yahoo.
• Cause more ads (pop-ups, redirects) to show in the browser.

Likely, Yahoo! Powered is is installed together with another potentially unwanted application. As a result, you might experience some more symptoms, like these:

• Unusual pop-up ads on your desktop or in your browser.
• Ads on websites that didn’t use to show any.
• Slower loading websites.
• Unexpected reloads and redirects.

In general, browser hijackers change browser settings to control which websites you visit. They open promoted sites and show you ads. Unfortunately, Yahoo! Powered does fit the description of a browser hijacker.

There is nothing wrong with Yahoo as a search engine. Some have problems with its advertisement and privacy policies, but that applies to most commercial search engines. The real issue that hurts the site’s reputation is just how many people are redirected to it against their own will (hence, Yahoo redirect virus).

Yahoo! Powered needs to be removed to free your browser settings.

How Yahoo! Powered is installed

Included in the installers or other programs

Bundling is the main way that Yahoo! Powered spreads. The program that brought Yahoo! Powered to your computer could have been a media player, a video or audio converter, an optimizer, a driver updater, or any other application.

Bundling is when one program’s installer has ads inside of it (OfferCore). The ads are often hidden or blended into the installation workflow. Either way, people end p accidentally installing the advertised software (Google: Unwanted bundled software is way more aggressive than malware).

Downloaded from freeware websites

Freeware repositories show deceptive ads that easily trick people to download unwanted files. In addition, some of them also wrap the programs that they distribute in their own installers that allow them to easily bundle multiple programs together. To avoid freeware bundlers, avoid freeware download sites.

It’s not always freeware bundling. For example, Search Extension by Ask is constantly installed together with other browser hijackers and unwanted programs. These programs tend to be advertised online, often by aforementioned fake download buttons.

How to uninstall Yahoo! Powered

Yahoo! Powered is not always easy to uninstall. Online, dozens of people say that they had difficulty removing this application. They also say that, even if they seem to remove it, Yahoo! Powered comes back in a few days.

Pop-ups might appear that ask you to reinstall Yahoo! Powered – this indicates that not all of the hijacker’s files were deleted.

You need to remove the desktop application of Yahoo! Powered, as well as all related browser add-ons. Download an anti-malware program, such as Spyhunter for Windows, Spyhunter for Mac, Combo-Cleaner for Mac, or another tool. They should tell you what suspicious files are on your system and where they can be found. All the malicious files need to be deleted.

After you’ve uninstalled Yahoo! Powered, you can fix your browser settings by following the guide below this article. Review your extensions and remove all the ones that you don’t use. Now no more pop-ups should come back to harass you.

Automatic Malware removal tools

Remove Yahoo! Powered manually

How to remove Yahoo! Powered using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Yahoo! Powered Hijacker install some of their components as regular Windows programs as well as additional software. This part of malware can be uninstalled from the Control Panel. To access it, do the following.

• Start→Control Panel (older Windows) or press Windows Key→Search and enter Control Panel and then press Enter (Windows 8, Windows 10).
• Choose Uninstall Program (if you don't see it, click in the upper right next to "View by" and select Category).
• Go through the list of programs and select entries related to Yahoo! Powered . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Yahoo! Powered Hijacker easier to find.
• Click the Uninstall button. If you're asked if you really want to remove the program, click Yes.
• In many cases anti-malware programs are better at detecting related parasites, thus I recommend installing Spyhunter to identify other programs that might be a part of this infection.

How to remove Yahoo! Powered from macOS

Delete Yahoo! Powered Hijacker from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the Yahoo! Powered app.
5. Select it and right-click it (or hold the Ctrl and click the left mouse button).
6. In the dropdown, click Move to Bin/Trash. You might be asked to provide your login password.

TopHow To remove Yahoo! Powered Hijacker 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 Yahoo! Powered Hijacker, 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 Yahoo! Powered Hijacker 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 Yahoo! Powered Hijacker 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 Yahoo! Powered, 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.

How to remove Yahoo! Powered Hijacker 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 Yahoo! Powered Hijacker, 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 Yahoo! Powered Hijacker from Safari:Top

Remove malicious extensions

• Click on Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Preferences.
  
• Select Extensions and uninstall Yahoo! Powered 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 Yahoo! Powered Hijacker, 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.