How to remove Search Anonymo virus

Search Anonymo and reasons not to trust it for the protection of your anonymity

Search Anonymo virus is a deceptive piece of malware, which falls into the category of browser hijackers ^[1]. The program seems to be primarily focused on infecting Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers, but it is not limited to affecting other browsers in the future as well.

This application attempts to force victims to switch from their default search engines to Searchanonymo.com. Software developers seemingly do it for a good cause — this search engine, unlike other search engines, is a tool which will protect user’s privacy online.

This potentially unwanted program (PUP) promises not to track the user and enhance the browsing experience by providing the most relevant search results; however, we consider these statements to be quite deceptive, to say at least.

Once installed, Searchanonymo.com redirect virus hijacks your browser’s Omnibox^[2] and provides its own search results when you try to search the Internet straight from browser’s address bar.

However, remember that part of these results are paid by third-party companies that want certain links to appear in the SearchAnonymo search results.

These modified search results can contain links that point to completely secure sites, but you might also come across results filled with dangerous links as well. Therefore, we highly recommend you to rely on your common sense and not browse through websites that seem shady.

It seems that this hijacker attempts to make money via pay-per-click^[3] advertising scheme but hardly cares about the trustworthiness of links that it promotes via search results. It is one of the reasons why we do not recommend using this search engine and suggest you remove Search Anonymo right away.

On top of that, all these claims about safer search experience seem to be an utter nonsense. Although this PUP promises not to track user’s activity online and not even have a single peek at your search and browsing history, we are afraid that it isn’t true and that you should stop using Search Anonymo search engine ASAP.

According to this program’s Privacy Policy, as soon as the user installs and runs the “product,” the program immediately records such information – user’s IP address, the date and time of access, name, and URL of the file called up, geo-marketing data^[4] and more. Here is an extract from this document:

When You visit a Product-Website, our servers will temporarily save every request in a logfile. The following data are registered and stored by us without any involvement from You:

• the IP address of the requesting terminal device;
• the date and time of access;
• the name and URL of the file called up;
• the website from which the file is accessed;
• the operating system of your terminal device and the browser you are using;
• the name of your internet access provider;

Besides, this suspicious program says to be using Microsoft or Yahoo search services to deliver search results, and that these companies might collect user’s search keywords, IP address, time and date of search queries, and more.
Besides, developers of this questionable free program admit to be using collected information to transfer it to “third-party content providers and providers of sponsored links.”

It becomes apparent that this suspicious search tool actually tracks the user, and its claims about safe and private browsing opportunities are just vain. Therefore, to free up some space on your PC, we suggest you complete Search Anonymo removal using the FortectIntego software.

Software distribution mechanism

First of all, you have to remember that despite being annoying, this browser parasite is a legitimate program. This means that it does not use any illegal tricks^[5] to install itself on victim’s computer system, and it even has its official website that users can visit and download the described program from there.

However, some computer users still end up installing this program on their computers without realizing it, and there’s no surprise why they start asking questions about Search Anonymo’s distribution.

Most of the time, users unknowingly install it alongside freeware or shareware programs, and mostly it happens due to lack of user’s attention to the software installation procedure, which typically provides several installation options for the user to choose from.

Users tend to wrongly assume that auto-selected options (Default/Standard/Basic) are the most trustworthy ones. In reality, these installation modes contain agreements to accept third-party programs bundled with the main software, and these bundled items usually appear to be adware, browser hijackers and other suspicious applications that no one wants to install.

It goes without saying that you must decompose such software package before you start installing your download. To do that:

• Choose Custom/Advanced installation option
• Deselect all suggested items one after another
• Agree to Install your download only after you make sure that all bundled items were opted out.

Search Anonymo removal from the infected browsers

Please use instructions provided below to remove Search Anonymo virus from affected web browsers.

You shouldn’t ignore the problem; switching the affected web browser with another one won’t allow you to run away from this hijacker because it can affect multiple web browsers at once. Therefore, we suggest you start thinking about Search Anonymo removal.

If you do not like the idea of trying to delete this browser hijacker manually, you can perform a quick system scan with an anti-spyware or anti-malware program and allow it to eliminate this hijacker automatically.