Seconomous.com hijacker – How to Remove Ads?

Written by Valdis Koks

Seconomous.com search hijacker is a sort of virus that injects into your computer system, and afterwards alters the search engine settings in your web browser to one which it wants. It also makes some undesirable modifications that can cause personal data leakages, as well as to various other malware penetration. In this post, you will see the tutorial of Seconomous.com hijacker elimination in several methods, and additionally the method of making your web browser just as good as new.

icon hijacker - Do I really need it?

Seconomous.com info

Name Seconomous.com extension
Type Browser hijacker1
Short Description The unwanted software that amends important browser settings without the user’s permission.
Symptoms The Seconomous.com hijacker replaces the browser parameters set by the users and replaces these settings with its own values.
Distribution Method Bundling with Freeware or Shareware, misleading pop-up ads produced by adware.
Detection Tool Inspect If Your System Has Been Affected by the Seconomous.com hijacker.

The ways of injection of Seconomous.com search hijackers are different. Most of them come from the malware dispersing via the malvertising or malevolent links of different web sites. Frequently, your PC can be contaminated with this malware via the trojan-downloader, which is put into action to distribute various other malware. There is a single kind of this unwanted program – browser plugin that can build into any type of internet browser which supports the add-on setup2.

You will not likely add this plugin by yourself, because their names are really uncertain, and also the capability is very controversial. The “developers” of Seconomous.com hijacker usually state that it can save the .doc/.docx documents from the websites already to .pdf format, or to save the entire web site on your disk. It is very difficult to picture if somebody can be needed in such functions in 2022, when the Web access is not time-limited as well as every computer is able to open the needed .docx documents at Google Docs.

Nonetheless, besides their impracticality, they may easily be discovered in the Chrome Web Store. Of course, virus analysts sound the alarm concerning such spam into the official source of browser extensions, calling for the Google response – getting rid of these extensions from their place. But they are still not hurrying to deal with that security problem.

Icon - Your PC hijacker

Is the Seconomous.com virus?

At the first sight, you can think that these redirects are only annoying, but not risky. Because of this factor a number of people are simply playing for time rather than removing this malware, obtaining increasingly more possibilities of being infected with numerous other malware, which are far more harmful than Seconomous.com is.

Besides the modified browser search engine or search engine result, you can also see different advertisements even on those sites that do not have any promotions on it by default. And you can unintentionally misclick while shutting off the promotion, and launch the downloading of an unrecognized file, which may be a virus, or a potentially undesirable application, or even ransomware – whatever the maintainers of this hijacker desire.

If your browser is damaged due to the Azorult trojan activity, the system may begin malfunctioning soon – this symptome is just one of the most typical in case of trojan infiltration.

Icon - remove Seconomous.com hijacker

How to remove Seconomous.com?

First, let me say several words about prevention the Seconomous.com virus penetration. It is very simple to speak about the methods of protecting your system from such frustrating things as browser hijackers, but it is really simple to be caught on this lure even being a skilled user. As it was mentioned above, this unwanted program can hide after the attractive (at the first sight) advertisement, or in packs with other adware you may get in dozens of ways. However, regardless of the common intricacy of the infiltration techniques, it is very simple to prevent the Seconomous.com hijacker appearing in your system:

  • Do not follow the dubious links;
  • Restrict the usage of pseudo-free software (one which is offered as free, but has an additional unwanted programs in its pack);
  • Leave the habit of clicking advertisements on the web. If you need to buy something, it is better to google it;
  • Avoid downloading the files from dubious sources, like forums or file sharing websites.
Seconomous.com may remain persistent on your system and may re-infect it. We recommend you to download Trojan Remover and run free scan to get rid of all infected files on your device. This saves you a lot of time and efforts compared to the manual malware removal.

Preparation before removing Seconomous.com.

Before starting the actual uninstall procedure, we recommend that you do the following introductory milestones.

  • See to it you have this hands-on tutorial always all set to use.
  • Perform a backup of all of your information, including the saved logins, passwords and also various other qualifications. You must support your info with a cloud backup option and ensure your files are shielded from any kind of loss, also from the most extreme infections.
  • Wait till the durable back-up process mores than.

Step 1: Uninstall Seconomous.com and related software from Windows

Here is a method in few simple stages that must have the ability to uninstall most applications. Either you use Windows 11/10 or 7, these milestones will work well. Moving the app or its folder to the Trash can be a very wrong idea. In case you do that, remnants of the app may remain, and that can cause the unstable performance of your system, malfunctions with the file type associations and other unpleasant behavior. The effective solution to get an app off your device is to remove it manually. To do that:

1. Keep holding the Windows Logo Button and “R” on your keyboard. A Pop-up window will soon arrive.

Windows keyboard R

2. In the field that appeared, type in “appwiz.cpl” -1  and choose OK – 2.

Run appwiz.cpl

 

3. This will open a window with all the apps available on the device. Choose the app that you want to get rid of, then choose “Uninstall

Follow the steps above and you will successfully get rid of most unwanted apps.

Step 2: Get rid of Seconomous.com from all your available browsers.

Mozilla FirefoxGoogle ChromeInternet ExplorerMicrosoft Edge

1. Launch Mozilla Firefox. Go to its menu window

2. Choose the “Add-ons” icon in the menu.

3. Find the unwanted extension and select “Remove

Mozilla Firefox Add-ons Remove

4. Upon deleting the extension, reload Mozilla Firefox, closing it with the help of a red “X” button in the upper right corner and start it again.

1. Launch Google Chrome and go to its drop menu

Google Chrome drop menu click

2. Click on “Tools” and then in the extended menu select “Extensions

Google Chrome Tools select Extensions

3. In the “Extensions” menu find the unwanted extension and apply the “Remove” button related to it.

Google Chrome Extensions Remove

4. As soon as the extension is deleted, reload Google Chrome by closing it by means of the red “X” button at the top right corner and launch it again.

1. Launch Internet Explorer

2. Click on the gear icon marked ‘Tools’ to open the drop menu and choose ‘Manage Add-ons’

Manage-add-ons

3. In the “Manage Add-ons” window, locate the extension you want to delete and then click “Remove”. A pop-up window will come up to inform you that you are about to delete the selected extension, and some more add-ons might be disabled as well. Leave all the boxes checked, and choose “Remove”.

Internet Explorer extension removal

4. Once the unwanted extension is deleted, reload Internet Explorer by shutting it down from the red “X” button located at the top right corner and launch it again.

1. Launch Edge

2. Access the drop menu by clicking on the icon at the top right corner.

3. From the drop menu choose “Extensions”.

Microsoft Edge menu Extensions

4. Locate the suspected dangerous extension you want to delete and then click on the Remove button.

Microsoft Edge Extensions Remove

Step 3: Clean any registries that could be added by Seconomous.com on your device.

The usually attacked registries of Windows machines are the following:

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

You can access them by going to the Windows registry editor and getting rid of any values added by Seconomous.com. Follow the steps below:

  1. Start the Run Window command once again, type “regedit” and click OK.Window command regedit
  2. As soon as you open it, you can freely go to the Run and RunOnce keys, whose locations are displayed above.Window command Run and RunOnce keys
  3. You can delete the value of the virus by right-clicking on it and deleting it.Window command regedit delete the value virus

Tip: To locate a virus-created value, you can right-click on it and select “Modify” to find which file it is set to run. If this is the malware file location, delete the value.

IMPORTANT!
Before starting “Step 4”, please boot back into Normal modein case you are currently in Safe Mode.
This will enable you to install and use Loaris Trojan Remover successfully.

 

Step 4: Scan for Seconomous.com with Loaris Trojan Remover

1. Click on the “Download” button to proceed to Loaris Trojan Remover download.

It is recommended to run a scan before purchasing the full version of the software to make sure that the current version of the malware can be detected by Trojan Remover. Click on the corresponding links to check License AgreementPrivacy Policy.

2. Click “Install” to start.

Loaris Trojan Remover Install

There were 4 scan types suggested:

  • Standard Scan.
  • Full Scan.
  • Custom Scan.
  • Removable Scan.

 

3. After the installed has finished, click on the ‘Scan’ tab. Click on ‘Full Scan’.

Loaris Trojan Remover Full Scan

4. Once the scanning is started, Loaris will initiate the thorough analysis of your device and may soon identify specific threats currently slowing down the performance of your system. Make sure to wait until the scanning is completed to let the software fully evaluate the safety of your workstation.

Loaris Trojan Remover - scan in process

5. After Loaris Trojan Remover has finished scanning your PC for any files of the associated threat and found them, you can try to get them removed automatically and permanently by clicking on the ‘Apply’ button. There were options to move the files to quarantine, ignore or delete them.

Loaris Trojan Remover - show viruses

If any threats have been removed, it is highly recommended to restart your PC.

 

  1. About browser hijackers on Wikipedia
  2. Possible danger of free browser extensions

About the author

Valdis Koks

Security engineer, reverse engineering and memory forensics

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