The dubious activity of Search.searchlivesportson.com earns it a “browser hijacker” title

Search.searchlivesportson.com is an intrusive browser hijacker by Polarity Technologies, Ltd. This suspicious company doesn’t seem to be tired of creating more and more potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that it releases almost every day[1].
One of its products is called Live Sports Online Now, and it is designed to instantly change victim’s homepage, new tab and search engine settings. On its official website, this suspicious browser extension[2] is advertised as a utility that allows watching live sports coverage.
However, we highly recommend you to remove Search.searchlivesportson.com as soon as you notice it in your browser. We will list reasons why we believe you should do so below.
If you are a try sports fan, you know that it can be tricky to find live sports streams online. Most of these websites are dubious and can promote spyware/malware products[3], suggesting that they are needed in order to watch the direct broadcast.
However, if you came across Live Sports Online site, do not install the extension it suggests you. Most likely it won’t help you to watch live streams. However, it will certainly change some of your browser’s settings to force you to use a dubious search engine.
Search engine promoted by Polarity Technologies, Ltd. is a doubtful product because cyber security experts noticed its tendency to serve sponsored search results as priority ones rather than organic and relevant ones. The questionable extension is designed to generate pay-per-click revenue for its developers in such way:
- The extension starts collecting “anonymous” information about the user, including one’s IP address, geolocation, search queries, browsing history, and similar details.
- Based on collected information, it serves third-party ads in the form of search results. To provide such ads, collected data might be shared with third-party organizations.
- As soon as the victim clicks on paid search results, URL redirection occurs. This way, the hijacker forces the victim to visit an affiliate website, promote it and at the same time earns revenue for attracting visitors to it.
Sadly, external sites can be dangerous, and you can never know where you’re going to end up. Therefore, we suggest you stay attentive and not click on random links online, especially if your browser acts not the way it used to.
In such circumstances, we suggest scanning the system with an anti-malware program like FortectIntego to detect and delete the threat for good. If you’re looking for manual Search.searchlivesportson.com removal guidelines, you should check out the tips we added at the end of this post.

Ways to install browser hijackers without realizing it
Computer users often install browser hijackers without realizing it because they tend to choose the wrong software installation settings. In most cases, they do not even pay attention to them because of “Next>Next>Install>Finish” approach.
You should never install computer programs this way. In fact, we suggest you choose Custom or Advanced settings for installation of your selected program. This way, you will see all the additions bundled with your preferred software and get an opportunity to deselect the unwanted ones.
All that you need to do then is to deselect the suggested programs and proceed.
Removing Search.searchlivesportson.com can be easy
You do not have to call a computer technician to remove Search.searchlivesportson.com virus for you. You can get rid of this potentially unwanted browser hijacker on your own by completing a list of tasks given below.
The 2-Spyware team decided to put together a quick Search.searchlivesportson.com removal tutorial for those who haven’t experienced a browser hijacking attack before. After deleting all of hijacker’s components, we highly recommend scanning the system with anti-spyware or anti-malware software just to check if all potentially unwanted or dangerous elements are gone.
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.
Reset Internet Explorer
Remove dangerous add-ons:
- Open Internet Explorer, click on the Gear icon (IE menu) on the top-right corner of the browser
- Pick Manage Add-ons.
- You will see a Manage Add-ons window. Here, look for suspicious plugins. Click on these entries and select Disable.

Change your homepage if it was altered:
- Open IE and click on the Gear icon.
- Select Internet Options.
- In the General tab, delete the Home page address and replace it by your preferred one (for example, Google.com).
- Click Apply and then select OK.

Delete temporary files:
- Press on the Gear icon and select Internet Options.
- Under Browsing history, click Delete...
- Select relevant fields and press Delete.

Reset Internet Explorer:
- Click on Gear icon > Internet options and select Advanced tab.
- Select Reset.
- In the new window, check Delete personal settings and select Reset.

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.

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