What causes the appearance of BrowsingGuard ads?
If you wonder why “Ads by BrowsingGuard” keep showing up on your computer screen, there is no need to search for the answer too far away. BrowsingGuard virus generates these ads, just like the line on these ads suggests. This program can significantly diminish your browsing experience, and it is not surprising why security researchers have categorized this program as potentially unwanted one.
Although the official Guard’s website suggests that it is a tool that can provide browsing protection and prevent phishing attacks, it seems that this program was developed only to implement pay-per-click advertising scheme. It appears that it is an ad-supported app, which showcases various third-party advertisements for the user during each browsing session, and surprisingly, most of these ads look superb. There is no doubt that they can lure the victim into clicking on them, but we highly recommend you not to do so. If you clicked on these ads, you would be redirected to some third-party website, and we cannot guarantee that it is going to be a reliable one. Be aware that Terms of Use document, which is presented in the official BrowsingGuard adware website, says that “Browsing Guard does not guarantee the results of the Services, and any use that you make of them shall be at your sole risk and expense. Browsing Guard shall not be liable to you for any special, indirect, consequential, lost profits, or punitive damages.” as you can see, authors of this app warn users about possible dangers you may encounter while using this application. Unfortunately, this indicates that BrowsingGuard ads can take you to untrustworthy or even possibly dangerous Internet sites. 
It is not like you are going to get one or two ads once in a while. Adware programs tend to spam the victim with loads of pop-up, banner, and in-text ads, and seeing these ads every day can annoy you to death. What is more, this PUP uses your computer’s memory while its active and prevents other programs from running smoothly. As a result, the entire computer is forced to decrease its speed. If you do not want to experience system slowdowns, it is better to remove BrowsingGuard. Install a reliable anti-malware, e.g. FortectIntego to remove it, or use instructions provided below.
How does this program hijack computers?
People who are responsible for distribution of such programs tend to bundle them with other, typically more popular free applications, as this way they can be distributed better and installed by more computer users. Distributors know that computer users are often inattentive and that they tend to rely on Default installation settings, which is a big, big mistake. When you choose these settings, you automatically give permissions to all “recommended programs” to be installed with the program that you have downloaded. To see these attachments, the user needs to switch the installation settings to either Custom or Advanced mode and deselect all additional entries. You can install BrowsingGuard from its official site as well. No matter which way have you downloaded and installed this program, it deserves to be removed. You can find its removal guidelines below.
How to remove BrowsingGuard?
Luckily, BrowsingGuard virus does not hide its files, so it is not that complicated to find and delete them manually. However, we believe that you should still follow BrowsingGuard removal instructions that we have prepared in order to uninstall this browser hijacker in a correct way. You can find them below; additionally, you can scan your PC with an anti-malware application just to ascertain that there are no other dangerous programs on the computer system.
Uninstall from Windows
Uninstall from Windows 10/8:
- Type Control Panel into the Windows search box and open the result.
- Under Programs, select Uninstall a program.

Uninstall from Windows 7/XP:
- Click on Windows Start > Control Panel (Windows XP users should click on Add/Remove Programs).
- In Control Panel, select Programs > Uninstall a program.

Remove the unwanted program:
- In the Programs and Features window, look for any recently installed suspicious entries, select them, and click Uninstall.
- If User Account Control appears, click Yes to confirm, then complete the removal.

Delete from macOS
Remove the unwanted application:
- From the menu bar, select Go > Applications.
- In the Applications folder, look for any suspicious entries, then drag them to Trash (or right-click and pick Move to Trash).

Delete leftover files and folders:
- Select Go > Go to Folder.
- Enter /Library/Application Support and remove any suspicious folders related to the unwanted program.
- Repeat the same check in the /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons folders, deleting any suspicious entries.

- Finally, empty the Trash to permanently remove the leftovers.
Remove from Microsoft Edge
Delete unwanted extensions from MS Edge:
- Select Menu (three horizontal dots at the top-right of the browser window) and pick Extensions.
- From the list, pick the extension and click on the Gear icon.
- Click Remove.

Clear cookies and other browser data:
- Click on the Menu (three horizontal dots at the top-right of the browser window) and select Settings > Privacy, search, and services..
- Under Clear browsing data, pick Choose what to clear.
- Select Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files. (apart from passwords, although you might want to include Media licenses as well, if applicable) and click on Clear.

Restore new tab and homepage settings:
- Click the menu icon and choose Settings.
- Then find On startup section.
- Click Remove next to any suspicious startup page.
Reset MS Edge if the above steps did not work:
- Press on Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
- Click on More details arrow at the bottom of the window.
- Select Details tab.
- Now scroll down and locate every entry with Microsoft Edge name in it. Right-click on each of them and select End Task to stop MS Edge from running.

Instructions for Chromium-based Edge
Delete extensions from MS Edge (Chromium):
- Open Edge and click select Settings > Extensions.
- Delete unwanted extensions by clicking Remove.

Clear cache and site data:
- Click on Menu and go to Settings.
- Select Privacy, search and services.
- Under Clear browsing data, pick Choose what to clear.
- Under Time range, pick All time.
- Select Clear now.

Reset Chromium-based MS Edge:
- Click on Menu and select Settings.
- On the left side, pick Reset settings.
- Select Restore settings to their default values.
- Confirm with Reset.
- This will disable extensions and reset startup pages but will not delete bookmarks, saved passwords, or browsing history.

Remove from Mozilla Firefox (FF)
Remove dangerous extensions:
- Open Mozilla Firefox browser and click on the Menu (three horizontal lines at the top-right of the window).
- Select Add-ons.
- In here, select the unwanted extension and click Remove.

Reset the homepage:
- Click three horizontal lines at the top right corner to open the menu.
- Choose Settings.
- Under Home, set your preferred homepage and new tab settings.
Clear cookies and site data:
- Click Menu and pick Settings.
- Go to Privacy & Security section.
- Scroll down to locate Cookies and Site Data.
- Click on Clear Data...
- Select Cookies and Site Data and Temporary cached files and pages, then click Clear.

Reset Mozilla Firefox
If clearing the browser as explained above did not help, reset Mozilla Firefox:
- Open Mozilla Firefox browser and click the Menu.
- Go to Help and then choose Troubleshooting Information.

- Under Give Firefox a tune up section, click on Refresh Firefox...
- Once the pop-up shows up, confirm the action by pressing on Refresh Firefox.

Remove from Google Chrome
Delete malicious extensions from Google Chrome:
- Open Google Chrome, click on the Menu (three vertical dots at the top-right corner) and select More tools > Extensions.
- In the newly opened window, you will see all the installed extensions. Uninstall all suspicious extensions related to the unwanted program by clicking Remove.

Clear cache and web data from Chrome:
- Click on Menu and pick Settings.
- Under Privacy and security, select Clear browsing data.
- Select Browsing history, Cookies and other site data, as well as Cached images and files.
- Click Clear data.

Change your homepage:
- Click menu and choose Settings.
- Look for a suspicious site in the On startup section.
- Click on Open a specific or set of pages and click on three dots to find the Remove option.
Reset Google Chrome:
If the previous methods did not help you, reset Google Chrome to eliminate all the unwanted components:
- Click on Menu and select Settings.
- In the Settings, scroll down and click Advanced.
- Scroll down and locate Reset and clean up section.
- Now click Restore settings to their original defaults.
- Confirm with Reset settings.

Delete from Safari
Remove dangerous extensions:
- Open Safari, click Safari in the menu at the top-left of the screen, and select Preferences.
- Go to the Extensions tab, look for any suspicious entries, and click Uninstall to remove them.

Clear history and website data:
- Click Safari in the menu and pick Clear History.
- Set Clear to all history and confirm with Clear History.

Reset Safari:
- Click Safari in the menu and select Preferences > Advanced.
- Enable Show Develop menu in menu bar.
- From the menu bar, click Develop and select Empty Caches.

Did this guide help?
4 comments
Jameson
Thank you - BrowsingGuard is gone. :)
Alenna22
BrowsingGuard ads still show up... I probably missed a step in this tutorial. Gotta read it all over once more.
ivory
It seems so hard to find files that belong to this app! I am searching for them all over my computer, but ads still show up. ugh...
Cristine
Thanks - Reimage deleted this.