You ran your web browser like FF, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, but somehow, for some reason, you did not get your favorite startpage you wanted after running it. This is sign of hijacker, potentially unwanted application created to reroute your browser to Ya.ru web page. The hijacker replacing the web browsers settings like home page, newtab page and search engine by default with its own data.
https://ya.ru/
A malware that alters settings of installed web-browsers on Ya.ru usually affects only Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge. However, possible situations, when any other web-browsers will be affected too. The Ya.ru browser hijacker infection may change the Target property of web-browser’s shortcuts, so every time you run the web-browser, instead of your startpage, you will see a completely different web site.
The browser hijacker infection, which set the Ya.ru search as your startpage can also set this unwanted web site as your search engine. You will encounter the fact that the search in the web browser has become uncomfortable to use, because the search results will consist of a lot of advertisements, links to ad and unwanted pages and a small amount of regular links, which are obtained from a search in the major search engines. Therefore, look for something using Ya.ru site would be a waste of time or worse, it can lead to even more infected PC.
Some browser hijackers also contain ‘ad-supported’ software (also known as adware) that may be used to open annoying ads and or collect a wide variety of personal info that can be sold to third parties. These unwanted advertisements can be opened in the form of pop-unders, pop-ups, in-text advertisements, video advertisements, text links or banners or even massive full page advertisements. Most of the ad-supported software is created to display ads, but some adware is form of spyware that often used to track users to collect a wide variety of personal data.
So, it’s very important to free your system ASAP. The steps, which is shown below, will help you to get rid of Ya.ru from the Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and MS Edge and other browsers.
Delete Ya.ru startpage
Without a doubt, the browser hijacker infection is harmful to your personal computer. So you need to quickly and completely remove this malicious software. To delete this hijacker, you may use the manual removal tutorial which are given below or free malicious software removal tool such as Malwarebytes or AdwCleaner (both are free). I note that we recommend that you use automatic removal which will help you to get rid of Ya.ru homepage easily and safely. Manual removal is best used only if you are well versed in computer or in the case where hijacker is not removed automatically.
Manual Ya.ru startpage removal
The tutorial will help you delete Ya.ru homepage. These Ya.ru removal steps work for the Chrome, FF, Microsoft Edge and IE, as well as every version of Microsoft Windows operating system. Some of the steps may require you to close the web browser or reboot your PC. So, bookmark or print it for later reference.
Remove Ya.ru associated software by using Microsoft Windows Control Panel
The best way to start the computer cleanup is to uninstall unknown and suspicious programs. Using the Microsoft Windows Control Panel you can do this quickly and easily. This step, in spite of its simplicity, should not be ignored, because the removing of unneeded programs can clean up the Google Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge and Internet Explorer from pop-ups hijackers and so on.
Windows 8, 8.1, 10
First, click Windows button
, then click Search 
. Type ‘Control panel’and press Enter as shown below.
When the ‘Control Panel’ opens, press the ‘Uninstall a program’ link under Programs category as shown below.
You will see the ‘Uninstall a program’ panel like below.
Very carefully look around the entire list of programs installed on your personal computer. Most likely, one or more of them are responsible for the appearance of ads and browser redirect to the annoying Ya.ru page. If you have many programs installed, you can help simplify the search of malicious programs by sort the list by date of installation. Once you have found a suspicious, unwanted or unused program, right click to it, after that click ‘Uninstall’.
Windows XP, Vista, 7
First, click ‘Start’ button and select ‘Control Panel’ at right panel as shown on the screen below.
Once the Windows ‘Control Panel’ opens, you need to click ‘Uninstall a program’ under ‘Programs’ like below.
You will see a list of software installed on your PC system. We recommend to sort the list by date of installation to quickly find the applications that were installed last. Most likely they responsibility for the appearance of ads and internet browser redirect. If you are in doubt, you can always check the program by doing a search for her name in Google, Yahoo or Bing. Once the program which you need to remove is found, simply click on its name, and then click ‘Uninstall’ as shown below.
Disinfect the internet browser’s shortcuts to get rid of Ya.ru search
A hijacker can hijack various Windows shortcuts on your desktop (most often, all browsers shortcuts), so in this step you need to check and clean them by removing the argument like http://site.address/.
To clear the web browser shortcut, right-click to it and select Properties. On the Shortcut tab, locate the Target field. Click inside, you will see a vertical line – arrow pointer, move it (using -> arrow key on your keyboard) to the right as possible. You will see a text like “http://site.address” that has been added here. You need to delete it.
When the text is removed, click the OK button. You need to clean all shortcuts of all your browsers, as they may be infected too.
Remove Ya.ru from Google Chrome
Like other modern web-browsers, the Chrome has the ability to reset the settings to their default values and thereby restore the home page, newtab and default search provider that have been modified by the Ya.ru browser hijacker infection.
First open the Chrome. Next, click the button in the form of three horizontal stripes (
). It will show the main menu. Further, click the option named “Settings”. Another way to open the Google Chrome’s settings – type chrome://settings in the internet browser adress bar and press Enter.
The web-browser will display the settings screen. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the “Show advanced settings” link. Now scroll down until the “Reset settings” section is visible, as shown in the figure below and click the “Reset settings” button.
The Google Chrome will display the confirmation dialog box. You need to confirm your action, click the “Reset” button. The web browser will start the procedure of cleaning. When it is complete, the web browser’s settings including startpage, new tab page and search provider by default back to the values that have been when the Google Chrome was first installed on your personal computer.
Get rid of Ya.ru from Firefox by resetting web-browser settings
Click the Menu button (looks like three horizontal lines), and click the blue Help icon located at the bottom of the drop down menu as shown on the screen below.
A small menu will appear, click the “Troubleshooting Information”. On this page, press “Refresh Firefox” button as shown on the image below.
Follow the onscreen procedure to restore your Firefox internet browser settings to its original state.
Delete Ya.ru home page from IE
To restore the newtab, start page and search provider by default you need to reset the Internet Explorer to the state, which was when the Microsoft Windows was installed on your machine.
First, start the Internet Explorer, then press ‘gear’ icon 
. It will display the Tools drop-down menu on the right part of the web-browser, then press the “Internet Options” as shown on the image below.
In the “Internet Options” screen, select the “Advanced” tab, then press the “Reset” button. The Microsoft Internet Explorer will display the “Reset Internet Explorer settings” prompt. Further, press the “Delete personal settings” check box to select it. Next, press the “Reset” button as on the image below.
When the task is finished, click “Close” button. Close the IE and reboot your system for the changes to take effect. This step will help you to restore your web browser’s home page, newtab and search engine by default to default state.
How to remove Ya.ru with free software
Manual removal steps does not always help to completely get rid of the hijacker infection, as it is not easy to identify and delete components of browser hijacker and all malicious files from hard disk. Therefore, it’s recommended that you run malware removal tool to completely remove Ya.ru off your computer. Several free malicious software removal tools are currently available that can be used against the hijacker. The optimum way would be to use Malwarebytes Free and AdwCleaner.
Use Malwarebytes to remove hijacker infection
You can get rid of Ya.ru startpage automatically with a help of Malwarebytes Free. We suggest this free malicious software removal tool because it can easily remove hijackers, adware (also known as ‘ad-supported’ software), potentially unwanted programs and toolbars with all their components such as files, folders and registry entries.
- Please download Malwarebytes to your desktop from the following link.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
326379 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
- At the download page, click on the Download button. Your web-browser will show the “Save as” dialog box. Please save it onto your Windows desktop.
- Once the download process is finished, please close all software and open windows on your machine. Double-click on the icon that’s named mb3-setup.
- This will launch the “Setup wizard” of Malwarebytes onto your system. Follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.
- When the Setup wizard has finished installing, the Malwarebytes will start and show the main window.
- Further, press the “Scan Now” button to begin scanning your PC system for the hijacker infection that cause a redirect to Ya.ru. When a threat is detected, the number of the security threats will change accordingly. Wait until the the checking is done.
- When the Malwarebytes has finished checking, it’ll show you the results.
- Next, you need to click the “Quarantine Selected” button to start cleaning your PC. Once the task is finished, you may be prompted to reboot the personal computer.
- Close the Anti-Malware and continue with the next step.
Video instruction, which reveals in detail the steps above.
Scan your computer and remove Ya.ru search with AdwCleaner
AdwCleaner is a free portable application that scans your computer for adware, PUPs and browser hijacker infections such as Ya.ru and allows remove them easily. Moreover, it’ll also help you remove any dangerous browser extensions and add-ons.
Download AdwCleaner by clicking on the link below.
225257 downloads
Version: 8.4.1
Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
Category: Security tools
Update: October 5, 2024
After downloading is finished, open the file location. You will see an icon like below.
Double click the AdwCleaner desktop icon. Once the utility is opened, you will see a screen as on the image below.
Further, click “Scan” button to perform a system scan with this utility for the Ya.ru hijacker . When it has finished scanning your computer, it will show a list of found threats as shown on the screen below.
In order to delete all items, simply click “Clean” button. It will display a prompt as on the image below.
You need to press “OK”. When the clean up is finished, the AdwCleaner may ask you to reboot your computer. When your computer is started, you will see an AdwCleaner log.
These steps are shown in detail in the following video guide.
Stop Ya.ru search and other annoying pages
In order to increase your security and protect your machine against new annoying ads and malicious web-sites, you need to use ad blocker application that stops an access to dangerous advertisements and sites. Moreover, the program may block the open of intrusive advertising, that also leads to faster loading of pages and reduce the consumption of web traffic.
Installing the AdGuard ad-blocker program is simple. First you’ll need to download AdGuard from the following link.
26627 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
After the download is finished, double-click the downloaded file to start it. The “Setup Wizard” window will show up on the computer screen as shown below.
Follow the prompts. AdGuard will then be installed and an icon will be placed on your desktop. A window will show up asking you to confirm that you want to see a quick guide as on the image below.
Click “Skip” button to close the window and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick guide which will assist you get to know AdGuard better.
Each time, when you run your PC system, AdGuard will start automatically and block pop-ups, pages such Ya.ru, as well as other malicious or misleading web-sites. For an overview of all the features of the program, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the AdGuard icon, which is located on your desktop.
How did you get infected with Ya.ru browser hijacker
I want to note that the Ya.ru browser hijacker gets onto personal computer by being attached to various free software. This means that you need to be very careful when installing applications downloaded from the World Wide Web, even from a large proven hosting. Be sure to read the Terms of Use and the Software license, select only the Manual, Advanced or Custom setup mode, switch off all additional modules and programs are offered to install.
Finish words
Now your PC system should be free of the Ya.ru . Remove AdwCleaner. We suggest that you keep Malwarebytes (to periodically scan your system for new malicious software, browser hijackers and adware) and AdGuard (to help you block unwanted pop-ups and dangerous web pages). Moreover, to prevent browser hijackers, please stay clear of unknown and third party applications, make sure that your antivirus application, turn on the option to find PUPs (potentially unwanted programs).
If you need more help with Ya.ru redirect related issues, go to our Spyware/Malware removal forum.
