Solid Way to Remove Find.searchwide.com from Windows and Mac OS X

How Do I Get Find.searchwide.com?

Many people have found that it is quite easy to be harassed by find.searchwide.com even though they are pretty vigilant about keeping things clean/update/running correctly. So how find.searchwide.com spreads itself and gets onto computers without knowledge? Here are some of its dissemination routines concluded by VilmaTech Online Support:

1. Find.searchwide.com will be installed by users when they install a third-party program with “recommended” or quick installation method.
2. Find.searchwide.com bundles with other web applications such as toolbar or adware.
3. Find.searchwide.com will be preloaded into a system when the system is visiting the websites having cooperative ties with the browser hijacker.

 

Find.searchwide.com Controlled Computer

1. Search provider is changed to find.searchwide.com.
2. Ads start to be seen to redirect users to some uninstall instructions at the bottom of the webpage.
3. System restore seems to be hindered.
4. Additional infections/web applications can be anticipated before long, especially delta-search.com.
5. Unknown and more processes are running in the background to consume limited resource.

 

How Dangerous Is Find.searchwide.com?

Given the fact that find.searchwide.com is a browser hijacker, by taking a glance at the above list, one should be informed that it can be dangerous. Keep reading to get the detailed information and to reach for solid way to remove it. Any help request or question will be gladly answered if you start a live chat here.

Find.searchwide.com is a browser hijacker created to intercept traffic and direct traffic to other cooperative sites for aggressive promotion and gain money out of it. it is clear that the browser hijacker owns a wide coverage and it is possibly to install additional items on the a target machine along with its settlement, which would have your limited space taken up, leaving less CPU/resource to allow the critical part to work fully so as to co-ordinate the operation and ward off potential threats.

Start from Babylon hijacker, plenty of browser hijackers have been blooming due to the ease of creation and the support by online operators. To get quick money, creators don’t spend much time in the building and thus bug can be always found and taken advantage by infections.

These are the main reasons why getting harassed by find.searchwide.com would easily lead to additional infections. One should be known that capitalizing on find.searchwide.com would greatly benefit the virus as BHO and JS techniques are always involved in building web pages. Once the two techniques are utilized maliciously, they make it easier to preload vicious code into a target system and record confidential information such as log-in credentials.
 

Solid Way to Remove Find.searchwide.com

Considering that find.searchwide.com is not a virus, anti-virus program won’t remove it successfully. Look for extensions, add-ons, programs, search bars and no dice? Below is the manual removal guide to follow up. Be noted that one should be well equipped with computer knowledge and skill so as to dig out some related items that do not seem to have relation to find.searchwide.com. It is impossible to list out the hidden and obscure ones as the name can vary from time to time and from OS to OS. Should you encounter difficulty in the middle of the removal, please do feel free to contact senior technician from VilmaTech Online Support for exclusive help.

 
1.    Reset browser settings.

IE

• Select Tools menu to choose Internet Options.
• Browse to Advanced tab to press on Restore Defaults button.
• Press OK will reset IE.
  

 
Firefox

• Click on the Firefox button and hover your mouse over Help option to select Troubleshooting information from the drop down list.
• In the pop-up window, press on ‘Reset Firefox’ button to reset Firefox.
  

 
Chrome

• Hit on ‘Customize and Control Google Chrome’ menu to choose ‘Options’.
• Navigate to ‘Under the Hood’ tab and press on ‘Reset to Defaults’ button to reset Google Chrome.
  

 
Opera

• Show hidden files and folders (steps are shown in step3) before navigating to “C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\Opera\Opera\” and removing Operapref.ini file there.
  

 
Safari

• Unfold Safari menu to choose ‘Reset Safari’ from the drop-down list.
• Tick all given options in the pop-up window.
• Press ‘Reset’ to reset Safari.
  

 
 
2.    Ping find.searchwide.com and modify Hosts files to stop find.searchwide.com from hijacking.

Windows

• Press down Win key and R key simultaneously to get a Run box.
• Type “cmd” and hit Enter key to access a little black window.
• Type “ping find.searchwide.com” and hit Enter key will get accurate IP address.
• Keep it open and navigate to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc.
• Click open Hosts file there and paste the IP address to the last line.
• Hit on File option to select save.

 
Mac OS X

• Access Finder launchpad icon and choose Utilities.
• Then click open Terminal.
  
• Type “ping find.searchwide.com” and hit Enter/Return key will you get find.searchwide.com’s accurate IP address.
• Keep the window open and use shift+command+g key combination to type “etc” (/private/etc/hosts).
• Hit Enter/Return key click open Hosts file there.
• Paste find.searchwide.com’s accurate IP address to the last line.
• Save it to modify host file.

 
 
3.    Show hidden files and folders to remove the items generated by find.searchwide.com.

Windows 7/XP/Vista

• Click open Control Panel from Start menu and access “user accounts and family safety”.
• Then double click on Folder Options to browse to its View tab.
• Please then tick ‘Show hidden files and folders’ and non-tick ‘Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)’.
  
• Click on ‘OK’ button to show hidden items.

 
Windows 8

• Double click on Windows Explorer from Start screen and browse to View tab.
• Tick ‘File name extensions’ and ‘Hidden items’ options.
• Click on ‘OK’ button to show hidden items.
  

 
Mac OS X

• Click on Finder launchpad icon and access Utilities folder to open Terminal window.
  
• Copy and paste the following line:
  

  defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

• Press return key.
• Then copy and paste the following line:
  

  killall Finder

• Press return key and you’ll see the hidden ones.

 
a.    when done, please remove the temp files generated by find.searchwide.com.

Windows

C:\WINDOWS\Temp
C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Temp
C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Temporary Internet File

 
Mac OS X

• Access Terminal again to type
  

  cd ~/Library/Logssudo
  rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/*

  and press Return button.

• Then type
  

  rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/Downloads.plist
  cd ~/Library/Caches
  sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/*

  and press Return button.

 
b. remove the items generated by find.searchwide.com on the day when it was firstly found.

Windows

• Access the following directories respectively, right click on the space to select “Arrange by” and choose “day” among the sub-options.

%Program Files%\Common Files\
C:\Windows
C:\Windows\System32
C:\Users\[your username]\Documents\
C:\users\user\appdata\local\
C:\Program Files\

 
Mac OS X

• Access Finder to hit on View option on the Menu bar; then select “Show view Options” to check “Date Created”.
• Access Dock and Display respectively (Apple menu > System Preferences)to remove the items created on the same day when find.searchwide.com firstly appeared.

 
 

Find.searchwide.com Recap

Find.searchwide.com is a browser hijacker that makes money for its creator by intercepting traffic and directing traffic to the sites owned by its creator or partners. With the browser hijacker, its creator knows where to place itself to make the most of promotion. Due to its loose structure, wide coverage, ability to preload into target system easily, remember online information and lots of cooperative ties with operators, find.searchwide.com has been found to be potentially dangerous to computer security and harmful to computer operation. To remove it, manual method can guarantee a solid removal when anti-virus programs are not helping remove non-virus items. Should you run into unexpected issues, please do not hesitate to start a live chat window and get specialized technical help from VilmaTech Online Support.

 

Tips on Removing Find.searchwide.com

1. In the event that other infections lands onto the same machine via find.searchwide.com, one should remove all the vicious instances in case some of them occupy find.searchwide.com to stop the success removal of the browser hijacker.
2. It is better to remove the items bundled with find.searchwide.com; otherwise, the browser hijacker could stage back.

Besides, as a web application, frequent redirect would lead to numerous cache and other innocuous items scattered around in the system, it is recommended to defrag disk to use the internal resource ideally and thus regain smooth operation; here’s the video to show how.

 

Published & last updated on May 23, 2014 by Erik V. Miller