Is your internet browser redirected to Safe Searching? This problem can be caused due to a browser hijacker. The hijacker infection is a type of malware which is created to modify your web browsers settings. You may experience any of the following behaviors: your newtab, home page and search engine by default is modified to “Safe Searching”, web-pages load slowly, you see multiple toolbars on the Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, MS Edge and Mozilla Firefox that you didn’t install, you get a ton of pop-up advertisements.
The hijacker, which set the Safe Searching redirect as your startpage, can also set this intrusive web-site as your search provider. You will encounter the fact that the search in the internet browser has become uncomfortable to use, because the search results will consist of a ton of ads, links to ad and unwanted websites and a small amount of regular links, which are obtained from a search in the major search providers. Therefore, look for something using Safe Searching web-site would be a waste of time or worse, it can lead to even more infected PC.
Also, ‘ad-supported’ software (also known as adware) can be installed on the personal computer together with Safe Searching browser hijacker. It will insert a ton of ads directly to the webpages that you view, creating a sense that advertisements has been added by the makers of the web-site. Moreover, legal ads may be replaced on fake advertisements that will offer to download and install various unnecessary and harmful software. Moreover, the Safe Searching hijacker be able to collect your user info which can be later used for marketing purposes.
In addition to that, as was mentioned earlier, some browser hijacker infections such as Safe Searching to also change all internet browsers shortcuts which located on your Desktop or Start menu. So, every affected shortcut will try to redirect your web browser to undesired web pages, certain of which might be harmful. It can make the whole computer more vulnerable to hacker attacks.
Thus, the Safe Searching does not really have beneficial features. So, we recommend you delete Safe Searching from the Internet Explorer, MS Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Chrome web-browsers immediately. This will also prevent the browser hijacker from tracking your online activities. A full Safe Searching removal can be easily carried out using manual or automatic way listed below.
How to remove Safe Searching from Google Chrome, Firefox, IE, Edge
The Safe Searching is a hijacker that you might have difficulty in removing it from your personal computer. Happily, you have found the effective removal tutorial in this blog post. Both the manual removal method and the automatic removal solution will be provided below and you can just choose the one that best for you. If you’ve any questions or need assist then type a comment below. Read this manual carefully, bookmark or print it, because you may need to close your internet browser or restart your personal computer.
To remove Safe Searching, complete the following steps:
- How to delete Safe Searching search without any software
- How to automatically get rid of Safe Searching browser hijacker infection
- Run AdBlocker to block Safe Searching and stay safe online
- How did you get infected with Safe Searching hijacker
- To sum up
How to delete Safe Searching search without any software
Read this section to know how to manually remove the Safe Searching browser hijacker infection. Even if the steps does not work for you, there are several free malware removers below which can easily handle such browser hijackers.
Uninstall potentially unwanted apps using Windows Control Panel
The best way to begin the computer cleanup is to remove unknown and suspicious software. Using the MS 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 apps can clean up the Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, MS Edge and Firefox from pop up advertisements hijackers and so on.
Make sure you have closed all web browsers and other programs. Press CTRL, ALT, DEL keys together to open the Windows Task Manager.
Click on the “Processes” tab, look for something suspicious that is the hijacker related to Safe Searching then right-click it and select “End Task” or “End Process” option. Most often, malware masks itself to avoid detection by imitating legitimate MS Windows processes. A process is particularly suspicious: it’s taking up a lot of memory (despite the fact that you closed all of your programs), its name is not familiar to you (if you are in doubt, you can always check the application by doing a search for its name in Google, Yahoo or Bing).
Next, remove any unknown and suspicious programs from your Control panel.
Windows 10, 8.1, 8
Now, press the Windows button, type “Control panel” in search and press Enter. Select “Programs and Features”, then “Uninstall a program”.
Look around the entire list of applications installed on your PC system. Most likely, one of them is the hijacker infection responsible for Safe Searching startpage. Select the suspicious program or the program that name is not familiar to you and uninstall it.
Windows Vista, 7
From the “Start” menu in Microsoft Windows, select “Control Panel”. Under the “Programs” icon, select “Uninstall a program”.
Choose the dubious or any unknown software, then press “Uninstall/Change” button to delete this undesired program from your system.
Windows XP
Click the “Start” button, select “Control Panel” option. Click on “Add/Remove Programs”.
Choose an undesired program, then click “Change/Remove” button. Follow the prompts.
Delete Safe Searching homepage from Mozilla Firefox
If the Firefox settings like search engine, newtab and start page have been changed by the hijacker, then resetting it to the default state can help.
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 displayed in the figure below.
A small menu will appear, press the “Troubleshooting Information”. On this page, click “Refresh Firefox” button as shown in the figure below.
Follow the onscreen procedure to revert back your Mozilla Firefox browser settings to its original state.
Delete Safe Searching redirect from Internet Explorer
First, run the Internet Explorer, then press ‘gear’ icon 
. It will display the Tools drop-down menu on the right part of the internet browser, then press the “Internet Options” as displayed in the following example.
In the “Internet Options” screen, select the “Advanced” tab, then click the “Reset” button. The IE will open the “Reset Internet Explorer settings” dialog box. Further, click the “Delete personal settings” check box to select it. Next, click the “Reset” button as displayed in the figure below.
After the task is complete, press “Close” button. Close the Internet Explorer and reboot your computer for the changes to take effect. This step will help you to restore your web browser’s default search provider, start page and newtab page to default state.
Remove Safe Searching redirect from Chrome
In order to be sure that there is nothing left behind, we suggest you to reset Chrome web-browser. It will return Chrome settings including newtab page, search provider by default and start page to defaults.
- First start the Google Chrome and click Menu button (small button in the form of three dots).
- It will show the Google Chrome main menu. Select More Tools, then click Extensions.
- You will see the list of installed plugins. If the list has the extension labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following guide: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
- Now open the Google Chrome menu once again, click the “Settings” menu.
- You will see the Google Chrome’s settings page. Scroll down and click “Advanced” link.
- Scroll down again and click the “Reset” button.
- The Chrome will display the reset profile settings page as shown on the image above.
- Next click the “Reset” button.
- Once this procedure is finished, your browser’s startpage, search engine and newtab page will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the article How to reset Chrome settings to default.
Fix infected internet browsers shortcuts to remove Safe Searching
When installed, the browser hijacker which modifies web-browser settings to replace your start page, new tab page and search engine by default with Safe Searching webpage, may add an argument similar to “http://site.address” into the Target property of the desktop shortcut for the Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer. Due to this, every time you launch the internet browser, it will display an intrusive site.
Right click on the web-browser’s shortcut file, click Properties option. 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 “http://site.address” which has been added here. Remove everything after .exe. An example, for Google Chrome you should remove everything after chrome.exe.
To save changes, press OK . You need to clean all browser’s shortcuts. So, repeat this step for the Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
How to automatically get rid of Safe Searching browser hijacker infection
If you are unsure how to get rid of Safe Searching browser hijacker infection easily, consider using automatic browser hijacker removal programs which listed below. It will identify the hijacker infection which redirects your web browser to unwanted Safe Searching page and remove it from your system for free.
How to automatically get rid of Safe Searching with Zemana Free
Zemana highly recommended, because it can detect security threats such ad supported software and hijackers which most ‘classic’ antivirus software fail to pick up on. Moreover, if you have any Safe Searching hijacker removal problems which cannot be fixed by this tool automatically, then Zemana Anti Malware provides 24X7 online assistance from the highly experienced support staff.
Zemana Free can be downloaded from the following link. Save it on your Windows desktop or in any other place.
164033 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
When downloading is finished, close all programs and windows on your computer. Double-click the setup file named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup. If the “User Account Control” prompt pops up as displayed on the screen below, click the “Yes” button.
It will open the “Setup wizard” that will help you install Zemana Anti-Malware (ZAM) on your computer. Follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.
Once installation is done successfully, Zemana Free will automatically start and you can see its main screen as displayed below.
Now click the “Scan” button to search for browser hijacker infection that cause Safe Searching web page to appear. Depending on your PC system, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. When a malware, adware or potentially unwanted applications are found, the count of the security threats will change accordingly.
As the scanning ends, the results are displayed in the scan report. All detected items will be marked. You can get rid of them all by simply click “Next” button. The Zemana Free will begin to get rid of Safe Searching browser hijacker and other internet browser’s harmful extensions. After that process is done, you may be prompted to restart the computer.
Get rid of Safe Searching browser hijacker and malicious extensions with HitmanPro
HitmanPro is a completely free (30 day trial) utility. You don’t need expensive methods to remove browser hijacker infection responsible for modifying your web-browser settings to Safe Searching and other misleading apps. Hitman Pro will delete all the unwanted apps like adware and browser hijacker infections for free.
Download Hitman Pro from the link below. Save it on your Microsoft Windows desktop.
Download and use Hitman Pro on your computer. Once started, press “Next” button to perform a system scan with this tool for the browser hijacker infection responsible for Safe Searching . A system scan can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on your personal computer. While the HitmanPro application is scanning, you can see how many objects it has identified as threat..
When HitmanPro has finished scanning, Hitman Pro will create a list of undesired and adware.
Review the report and then click Next button.
It will open a prompt, press the “Activate free license” button to begin the free 30 days trial to remove all malware found.
Run Malwarebytes to remove Safe Searching homepage
Manual Safe Searching search removal requires some computer skills. Some files and registry entries that created by the browser hijacker can be not completely removed. We suggest that run the Malwarebytes Free that are completely clean your PC system of browser hijacker. Moreover, the free program will help you to remove malicious software, potentially unwanted apps, ad-supported software and toolbars that your system can be infected too.
- Download MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) on your machine by clicking on the link below.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
326386 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
- After the download is done, close all programs and windows on your PC system. Open a file location. Double-click on the icon that’s named mb3-setup.
- Further, click Next button and follow the prompts.
- Once installation is done, click the “Scan Now” button to begin scanning your personal computer for the hijacker infection responsible for changing your browser settings to Safe Searching. This procedure can take quite a while, so please be patient. During the scan MalwareBytes Anti Malware will detect threats exist on your computer.
- After that process is done, MalwareBytes Anti-Malware will produce a list of unwanted and adware. All found items will be marked. You can remove them all by simply click “Quarantine Selected”. After disinfection is done, you can be prompted to restart your machine.
The following video offers a guide on how to delete hijacker infections, ad-supported software and other malware with MalwareBytes Free.
Run AdBlocker to block Safe Searching and stay safe online
By installing an ad-blocking application like AdGuard, you are able to stop Safe Searching, autoplaying video ads and get rid of a huge count of distracting and intrusive ads on pages.
Download AdGuard on your personal computer by clicking on the following link.
26627 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
After downloading it, start the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen as shown below.
Follow the prompts. After the installation is complete, you will see a window as shown on the screen below.
You can click “Skip” to close the install program and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” button to see an quick tutorial that will assist you get to know AdGuard better.
In most cases, the default settings are enough and you don’t need to change anything. Each time, when you launch your personal computer, AdGuard will run automatically and stop ads, web sites like Safe Searching, as well as other malicious or misleading sites. For an overview of all the features of the application, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the AdGuard icon, that may be found on your desktop.
How did you get infected with Safe Searching hijacker
Most often, the freeware setup file includes the optional ad supported software or potentially unwanted apps like this browser hijacker. So, be very careful when you agree to install anything. The best way – is to choose a Custom, Advanced or Manual installation method. Here uncheck all third-party programs in which you are unsure or that causes even a slightest suspicion. The main thing you should remember, you do not need to install the optional software which you don’t trust! The only thing I want to add. Once the free applications is installed, if you uninstall this software, the search engine by default, newtab and homepage of your favorite browser will not be restored. This must be done by yourself. Just follow the steps above.
To sum up
Once you have complete the steps above, your PC should be clean from this browser hijacker infection and other malware. The Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, MS Edge and Google Chrome will no longer show annoying Safe Searching web page on startup. Unfortunately, if the few simple steps does not help you, then you have caught a new hijacker, and then the best way – ask for help.
Please start a new thread by using the “New Topic” button in the Spyware Removal forum. When posting your HJT log, try to give us some details about your problems, so we can try to help you more accurately. Wait for one of our trained “Security Team” or Site Administrator to provide you with knowledgeable assistance tailored to your problem with the undesired Safe Searching search.
