What is Charity Search browser plugin? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
The Charity Search search hijacker is an illustration of a typical unwanted program; such programs are distributed enormously nowadays. In this article you will see the precise information of “Charity Search” hijacker removal in different tactics: making use of anti-malware software and also hand-operated elimination procedure.
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Charity Search – What is it?

“Charity Search” search hijacker is a potentially unwanted application (PUA)1, that is promoted as a plugin for your web browser. It is typically promoted as an add-on for Chrome or Firefox, that aids to browse some particular info, for instance, about sport events, make your web browser a lot more safe, enable downloading of any web video, and so on. Also, this app adds the “Managed by your organization” feature (on Chrome browsers).

Nevertheless, the “Charity Search” plugin is quite ineffective since all such features are currently built-in to your browser and/or Windows. Such marketing slogans are targeted at low-skilled computer users, such as pensioners or schoolchildren. But occasionally even skilled users are getting caught on such an appeal. In specific scenarios, this hijacker is dispersed together with free tools.

Charity Search hijacker - Charity-search.com

Charity Search Search Hijacker

Here is a details for the Charity Search hijacker
NAME Charity Search
Site Charity-search.com
Hosting AS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection Type Browser Hijacker, Unwanted Application
IP Address 52.3.212.43
Symptoms Changed search engine; search queries redirection
Similar behavior 1, Classifieds, Locate
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How harmful is Charity Search hijacker?

Besides its uselessness, Charity Search hijacker is additionally rather harmful for browser usage. It changes your search engine to its specific – Charity-search.com, and likewise alters your background, adding its watermark on your background image (or, sometimes, changing it to default with the specified symbol).

Apart from visual modifications done by Charity Search hijacker, you can see that many of your search inquiries are redirecting to the uncertain websites, filled with web links and advertisements – so-called doorway websites. Such websites can have web links for malware downloads. The chance of redirecting rises if you try to launch Google search page forcibly.

But all these activities are more irritating than truly destructive. The largest risk, primarily for people who have a great deal of secret information in their browsers, is embedded in data gathering functions. Cookie files, chats, often-visited sites, and other activities are easily collected by Charity Search hijacker.

How to remove Charity Search search hijacker?

  • Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware.
  • Open GridinSoft Anti-Malware and perform a “Standard scan“.
  • “Move to quarantine” all items.
  • Open “Tools” tab – Press “Reset Browser Settings“.
  • Select proper browser and options – Click “Reset”.
  • Restart your computer.

Browser hijackers are usually pretty very easy to remove. Most of the times, they have an independent application that can be seen in the list of installed software. Because of the certain marketing tactic of Charity Search hijacker, it can be easily tracked and erased by hand. Nevertheless, if you got Charity Search in the package with a free program, your PC might be infected with a lot more severe malwaretrojans, spyware or even ransomware. That’s why I’d advise you utilize anti-malware programs to deal with the Charity Search PUA and all various other malware.

You can use Microsoft Defender2 – it is capable of recognizing and clearing away a wide range of malware, including named hijacker. But severe malware, that can exist on your computer in the discussed situation, can disable the Windows antivirus program by modifying the Group Policies. To keep away from such circumstances, it is better to use GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

To detect and remove all malicious applications on your computer with GridinSoft Anti-Malware, it’s better to utilize Standard or Full scan. Quick Scan is not able to find all the malicious apps, because it checks only the most popular registry entries and folders.

Main screen in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

You can spectate the detected malware sorted by their possible harm till the scan process. But to choose any actions against malicious apps, you need to hold on until the scan is finished, or to stop the scan.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware during the scan

To set the action for each detected virus or unwanted program, click the arrow in front of the name of the detected malicious app. By default, all malware will be removed to quarantine.

List of the detected malware after the scan

Reset browser settings to original ones

To revert your browser settings, you need to use the Reset Browser Settings option. This action is not able to be intercepted by any malware, hence, you will surely see the result. This action can be located in the Tools tab.

Tools tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

After choosing the Reset Browser Settings button, the menu will be displayed, where you can choose, which settings will be reverted to the original.

Reset Browser Settings options

Deleteing Charity Search hijacker manually

Besides using anti-malware software for browser restoration, you may choose the “Reset browser settings” function, which is usually embedded in all popular browsers.

To reset Edge, do the following steps :
  1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
  2. Reseting the Edge browser

  3. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :
For Mozilla Firefox, do the next actions :
  1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
  2. The first step to revert Mozilla Firefox

  3. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
  4. The second step of Firefox restoration
    After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
    The last step for Firefox

If you use Google Chrome
  1. Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
  2. In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
  3. Finally, you will see the window, where you can see all the settings which will be reset to default :
Opera can be reset in the next way
  1. Open Settings menu by pressing the gear icon in the toolbar (left side of the browser window), then click “Advanced” option, and choose “Browser” button in the drop-down list. Scroll down, to the bottom of the settings menu. Find there “Restore settings to their original defaults” option :
  2. After clicking the “Restore settings…” button, you will see the window, where all settings, which will be reset, are shown :

As an afterword, I want to say that time plays against you and your PC. The activity of browser hijacker must be stopped as soon as possible, because of the possibility of other malware injection. This malware can be downloaded autonomously, or offered for you to download in one of the windows with advertisements, which are shown to you by the hijacker. You need to act as fast as you can.

I need your help to share this guide.

Browser hijackers are among the largest and also disruptive kinds of malware. I published this article to help you, so I wish you will help me to make the computer world completely clean of malware. Please, share this article in the social networks you use – Twitter, Reddit, Facebook – wherever.
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Wilbur Woodham
How to Remove Charity Search?

Name: Charity Search

Description: Charity Search - a lot of users became a victim of browser hijacker. I have a lot of friends who literally bombed me with the questions like “how to remove Charity Search?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Charity Search (Charity-search.com), which may corrupt your browser’s correct performance, and create a lot of troubles while you are working.

Operating System: Windows

Application Category: Browser Hijacker

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References

  1. More information about PUAs
  2. Detailed review of Microsoft Defender

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

I was a technical writer from early in my career, and consider IT Security one of my foundational skills. I’m sharing my experience here, and I hope you find it useful.

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