Remove Funny Searching “Virus” Chrome/Firefox/IE

[bannerTop]

In this article we are going to try and help you remove Funny Searching “Virus”. Our instructions cover all Windows versions as well as most browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.

In case you are facing a contamination caused by Funny Searching “Virus”, you are at the right place at the right time. Below you will find the full description of this browser hijacker, including general details about this software type, explanations for the way it could behave and some prevention and removal tips. Briefly speaking, the programs from this category could access and modify your browsers settings in a way that might cause:

  • Redirection to some websites that you haven’t commanded the browser to load;
  • Appearance of a big number of online ads – pop-ups, boxes and banners that may disrupt your browsing experience to a point when your entire browser could be covered with pop-up windows and you might be unable to open any website;
  • Display of new browser homepages and search engines, different from the typical ones that you are used to seeing.

Another important fact is that once you have (directly or indirectly) installed this hijacker on your PC, all of your browsers can be affected – Firefox, Chrome, Explorer or/and Opera, or whatever other popular browser apps you are using.

General details about the software category ‘browser hijackers’

Generally, browser Hijackers refer to pieces of software that you might install on your PC, and which may override the normal functionality of your web browsers. Sometimes, such programs could trick you into installing them and may be slightly annoying and complicated to remove. Some examples of how such a program, for example – Funny Searching “Virus”, might affect your browsers are the following:

  • For instance, you want to load www.google.com and look for something on the web. In case your PC has been infected with a hijacker, you will be taken to this hijacker’s search engine, instead of Google. Such a consequence might be truly irritating;
  • Another example is the change of your default browser homepage. Instead, the browser settings could be modified and you may be automatically brought to the hijacker’s website;
  • What may also happen is some sort of a redirecting. For example, you have been browsing the Internet in the desire to find the cheapest holiday deals. As a result of the presence of Funny Searching inside your system, you may be brought to a website, promoted by the particular hijacker, which you have caught, instead of being sent to the website, which contains the real deals.

Are all these activities legal? Could experts characterize Funny Searching as malicious?

All these advertising activities are legitimate and none of them break any laws, of that you can be sure. This type of behavior is typical of the hijackers and other advertising-related software because their programmers get better payment if they make these programs more persistent when it comes to the promotion campaigns. In this sense of the word, Funny Searching is not worse than all the TV ads you are exposed to while watching a movie – they are all legal and based on real legislature and business practices. When it comes to the supposed malicious nature of Funny Searching, we must say that these are all rumors. In fact, there isn’t any proof of any dangerous effects, caused by the presence of any hijacker. These advertising programs are created according to the law, unlike most of the popular viruses, such as Ransomware and Trojans. While Ransomware and Trojans could indeed damage your system, corrupt or encrypt data, such effects are highly improbable when we are talking about a browser hijacker.

Why is Funny Searching regarded as ‘potentially unwanted’? Does such a classification have anything to do with the way hijackers are spread?

The aforementioned way of acting, typical of most of the hijackers lurking on the Internet, along with the rather shady methods of downloading and installing such programs have contributed to their reputation of ‘potentially unwanted’ software. Normally, browser hijackers get bundled with some interesting games, new apps and fascinating programs of any kind. After that, the created ‘bundles’ are distributed for free across the web. Using such bundles, the hijacker developers may increase your curiosity about a certain component of the bundle and you may get tricked into installing the potential hijacker inside it as well. That’s why the first rule of safe browsing is the following: Always try to install whatever software you have downloaded in the right way. By ‘right way’ we mean the choice of the proper installation step. Usually, the safe features are called ‘Custom’ and/ or ‘Advanced’.We do NOT recommend that use any of the other wizard options. Of course, the so-called bundles are not the only sources of ad-producing programs. They could also be included in torrents, shareware; and may come from infected web pages as well. In case you are looking for a way to remove Funny Searching, check out our Removal Guide at the end of this article. It might be just what you need!

Remove Funny Searching “Virus”

Many types of malware will restrict your access to their core files. It is highly recommended that you reboot your PC in safe mode before attempting to use this guide.

  • To enable Safe Mode reboot you PC, then hit F8 repeatedly. When the corresponding menu opens please select Safe Mode with Networking.

WARNING! If you are using Windows 8,0 or later and/or your operating system is installed on a fast SSD drive this may fail to work. In this case click here to see how to start your PC in Safe Mode.

#1: Uninstall the malicious program from your control panel

 [bannerMiddle]

Enter control panel to look for any suspicious programs, which may have installed on your PC. To do that:

  1. Navigate to your Desktop
  2. Press simultaneously the Win button together with the R button (Win+R)
  3. In the Run window that just opened type appwiz.cpl

Removal ads Guide pic 1

  1. Go through the list of programs and find Funny Searching or anything else that may seem suspicious. Right-click on it and choose the uninstallation option

WARNING! Carefully read any confirmation messages that may be created in the process. Sometimes you may get offers to download more Adware applications and this can be linked to either the Yes or the No answer depending on the wording!

  • Optional:

Go through the list of programs again and check online for any potentially unwanted programs. We have an article that covers this awesome free software that makes sure that your computer is free from bloatware and programs that you don’t need.

#2: Remove Funny Searching From Chrome

Now we’ll remove the extensions that the malware has attached to your browser.

  1. Open your Google Chrome browser.
  2. Type chrome://extensions/  in the URL address bar and press Enter.
  3. Click on “Developer Mode” on the top right and look for the extension installed by Funny Searching and anything that might be related to it. Copy their IDs (the string of letters), then remove them by clicking on the trash bin icon.

Removal ads guide pic 2

  1. Type Regedit in the Windows Start Menu and press Enter. Go in : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Chrome\Extensions and delete the entries corresponding to the suspicious IDs you recorded.

#3: Remove Funny Searching From Firefox

  1. Open Mozilla Firefox browser.
  2. Type “about:support” in the URL address bar and press Enter.
  3. Click on the “Refresh Firefox” button on the right and confirm.

removal ads guide pic 3

#4 Remove Funny Searching From Internet Explorer

  1. Open your Internet Explorer internet browser.
  2. Click on the Gear icon on the up right, then on manage add-ons.
  3. Go through the list disable any suspicious extensions.

guide pic 4

#5 Remove any leftover parasitic processes

 [bannerMiddleSecond]

From the task manager:

  1. Use Ctrl + Shift + Esc and open the Task manager, then click on the Processes
  2. Go through the list of processes and look for unknown or otherwise suspicious entries.
  3. If you see anything suspicious right click on the process and shoes Open File Location, then terminate the process and delete any files you find in the directory.

ads removal guide pic 6

WARNING! If the directory you open from this menu has no files inside of it it’s probably because the malware has hidden them. You need to reveal hidden files and folders in order to be able to see them. Click here if you don’t know how to do that.


ads removal guide pic 5

From the start menu:

  1. Press simultaneously the Win button together with the R button (Win+R)
  2. In the Run window that just opened type msconfig
  3. Click on the Startup tab.

ads removal guide pic 7

This menu controls which programs are loaded when windows starts after a reboot. Disable anything that seems suspicious. Optionally you can also disable any program that you don’t need and also has a high impact on your startup time.

Feel free to write to us in the comment section with any questions that you may have. Also if we have been helpful to you please share this article to help us reach more people like you.  

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *