How to remove Score Stars (Virus removal guide)

The Score Stars is a potentially unwanted program (PUP) belonging to the Browser hijackers that could bring some problems to your PC. Once installed, it can impose changes to the internet browser settings, making your new tab page, startpage and default search provider to become its own web page. You may have certain problems such as being redirected to unwanted web pages, receiving a large number of unwanted popup ads, and personal information about you being collected without any knowledge, while this hijacker is installed on your system.

Most often, browser hijackers promote fake search providers by setting their address as the default search provider. In this case, Score Stars installs feed.score-stars.com as a search provider. This means that users whose web browser is infected with the hijacker are forced to visit feed.score-stars.com each time they search in the Net. And since Score Stars is not a real search provider and does not have the ability to find the information users need, this web-page reroutes the user’s internet browser to the Yahoo search engine.

As well as unwanted web-browser redirections to feed.score-stars.com, the hijacker can gather your World Wide Web browsing activity by saving URLs visited, IP addresses, internet browser version and type, cookie information, Internet Service Provider (ISP) and web-sites visited. Such kind of behavior can lead to serious security problems or user data theft. This is another reason why the Score Stars is classified as PUP (potentially unwanted program) and should be removed sooner.

Threat Summary

Name	Score Stars
Type	browser hijacker, search engine hijacker, home page hijacker, toolbar, unwanted new tab, redirect virus
Symptoms	pop ups and new tab pages are loaded without your request website links redirect to web-pages different from what you expected new entries appear in your Programs folder unwanted toolbars on your desktop unexpected changes in your web-browser such as using a new default search engine
Removal	Score Stars removal guide

 

How can a browser hijacker get on your computer

Score Stars like other potentially unwanted apps can get installed to your internet browser or PC when you visit a website and press an Install button, or when you download and run a dubious application, or when you install free software that includes a PUP (potentially unwanted program). Be very attentive when installing any programs and make sure you deselect any options for third-party apps that you do not want.

If you are unfortunate have browser hijacker, adware or malware running on your PC system, you can follow the suggestions here to remove Score Stars from your web browser.

How to remove Score Stars from Windows 10 (8, 7, XP)

The Score Stars is a browser hijacker that you might have difficulty in uninstalling it from your machine. Thankfully, you’ve 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 select the one that best for you. If you’ve any questions or need help then type a comment below. Read it once, after doing so, please bookmark this page (or open it on your smartphone) as you may need to close your internet browser or restart your computer.

To remove Score Stars, follow the steps below:

1. How to manually delete Score Stars
   • Remove potentially unwanted software using Microsoft Windows Control Panel
   • Remove Score Stars home page from web browsers
2. Automatic Removal of Score Stars
   • Get rid of Score Stars start page with Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM)
   • Run Hitman Pro to remove Score Stars startpage
   • Run MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM) to remove Score Stars search
3. How to block Score Stars
4. Finish words

How to manually delete Score Stars

Most common hijacker infections may be removed without any antivirus applications. The manual hijacker infection removal is instructions that will teach you how to remove Score Stars . If you do not want to remove Score Stars in the manually due to the fact that you are not skilled at computer, then you can run free removal utilities listed below.

Remove potentially unwanted software using Microsoft Windows Control Panel

When troubleshooting a computer, one common step is go to MS Windows Control Panel and uninstall dubious software. The same approach will be used in the removal of Score Stars homepage. Please use steps based on your MS Windows version.

It will display the Windows Control Panel as displayed in the figure below.

Next, click “Uninstall a program”
It will show a list of all apps installed on your PC. Scroll through the all list, and delete any questionable and unknown software. To quickly find the latest installed software, we recommend sort software by date in the Control panel.

Remove Score Stars home page from web browsers

If you have ‘Score Stars ‘ removal problem, then remove unwanted addons can help you. In the steps below we’ll show you the way to remove malicious extensions without reinstall. This will also help to remove Score Stars search from your web browser.

Google Chrome	Mozilla Firefox
In the top right hand corner, click on ‘three vertical dots’, and this will open up the main menu on Google Chrome. Select ‘More tools’, then ‘Extensions’. Click ‘Remove’ to uninstall an extension. Click ‘Remove’ in the dialog box. You can also try to delete Score Stars redirect by reset Google Chrome settings.	Click on ‘menu’ button and select ‘Add-ons’. Go to ‘Extensions’ tab. To uninstall an add-on, click on ‘Remove’ button next to it. If you are still experiencing issues with Score Stars search removal, you need to reset Mozilla Firefox browser.
Internet Explorer	Safari
Click ‘Tools’ button in the top-right corner. Select ‘Manage add-ons’. In the drop-down menu under ‘Show’, select ‘All add-ons’. To delete an add-on, double-click it; in the new window click ‘Remove’. Another way to remove Score Stars homepage from IE is reset Internet Explorer settings.	On the top menu select ‘Safari’, then ‘Preferences’. Select ‘Extensions’ tab. Select an extension you want to delete and click ‘Uninstall’ button next to it.

Automatic Removal of Score Stars

Anti-Malware applications differ from each other by many features like performance, scheduled scans, automatic updates, virus signature database, technical support, compatibility with other antivirus applications and so on. We recommend you use the following free apps: Zemana Anti Malware (ZAM), MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and Hitman Pro. Each of these applications has all of needed features, but most importantly, they can search for the hijacker infection and get rid of Score Stars from the Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and MS Edge.

Get rid of Score Stars start page with Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM)

Download Zemana Free to remove Score Stars automatically from all of your web-browsers. This is a freeware specially developed for malware removal. This utility can remove adware, browser hijacker from Internet Explorer, Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and MS Edge and Microsoft Windows registry automatically.

First, please go to the following link, then click the ‘Download’ button in order to download the latest version of Zemana.

Once downloading is done, close all windows on your computer. Further, launch the install file named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup. If the “User Account Control” prompt pops up like below, press the “Yes” button.

It will show the “Setup wizard” which will assist you install Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM) on the PC. Follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.

Once setup is done successfully, Zemana Anti-Malware (ZAM) will automatically launch and you can see its main window like below.

Next, click the “Scan” button to find Score Stars browser hijacker and other internet browser’s harmful plugins. This task can take quite a while, so please be patient. During the scan Zemana Anti-Malware (ZAM) will detect threats present on your system.

When Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM) completes the scan, Zemana Free will show a list of all items detected by the scan. Review the scan results and then press “Next” button.

The Zemana AntiMalware will get rid of browser hijacker responsible for redirecting user searches to Score Stars and add items to the Quarantine. Once the procedure is finished, you can be prompted to restart your machine.

Run Hitman Pro to remove Score Stars startpage

HitmanPro will help remove browser hijacker responsible for redirecting user searches to Score Stars that slow down your PC system. The hijackers, adware software and other potentially unwanted software slow your web-browser down and try to force you into clicking on suspicious advertisements and links. HitmanPro removes the browser hijacker infection and lets you enjoy your personal computer without Score Stars .

1. First, please go to the following link, then click the ‘Download’ button in order to download the latest version of HitmanPro.
   
   

   HitmanPro
   12066 downloads
   Author: Sophos
   Category: Security tools
   Update: June 28, 2018
   
2. When downloading is complete, run the Hitman Pro, double-click the HitmanPro.exe file.
3. If the “User Account Control” prompts, click Yes to continue.
4. In the Hitman Pro window, click the “Next” to look for hijacker infection responsible for Score Stars . When a threat is detected, the count of the security threats will change accordingly. Wait until the the checking is done.
5. After Hitman Pro has completed scanning your personal computer, Hitman Pro will show you the results. In order to remove all threats, simply click “Next”. Now, click the “Activate free license” button to begin the free 30 days trial to get rid of all malware found.

Run MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM) to remove Score Stars search

Manual Score Stars start page removal requires some computer skills. Some files and registry entries that created by the browser hijacker may be not completely removed. We suggest that use the MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) that are completely free your PC of browser hijacker infection. Moreover, this free program will allow you to remove malware, PUPs, adware and toolbars that your computer may be infected too.

MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM) can be downloaded from the following link. Save it to your Desktop.

After downloading is done, close all windows on your computer. Further, run the file called mb3-setup. If the “User Account Control” prompt pops up as shown below, press the “Yes” button.

It will show the “Setup wizard” that will help you install MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM) on the computer. Follow the prompts and don’t make any changes to default settings.

Once installation is done successfully, click Finish button. Then MalwareBytes Free will automatically launch and you may see its main window like below.

Next, press the “Scan Now” button to begin checking your personal computer for the hijacker responsible for redirecting user searches to Score Stars. Depending on your PC, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. During the scan MalwareBytes Anti Malware will search for threats exist on your machine.

When MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) has completed scanning your personal computer, MalwareBytes will create a list of unwanted applications and browser hijacker. Make sure to check mark the items which are unsafe and then click “Quarantine Selected” button.

The MalwareBytes will get rid of hijacker that cause a redirect to Score Stars web-site and add threats to the Quarantine. Once disinfection is finished, you can be prompted to restart your computer. We advise you look at the following video, which completely explains the procedure of using the MalwareBytes Free to remove browser hijacker infections, adware and other malicious software.

How to block Score Stars

By installing an ad-blocker program such as AdGuard, you are able to block Score Stars, autoplaying video ads and delete a huge number of distracting and undesired ads on web pages.

Download AdGuard from the link below.

Once the download is done, launch the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen as shown on the image below.

Follow the prompts. After the setup is finished, you will see a window as shown in the following example.

You can press “Skip” to close the installation application and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” button to see an quick tutorial that will allow you get to know AdGuard better.

In most cases, the default settings are enough and you do not need to change anything. Each time, when you launch your machine, AdGuard will start automatically and stop undesired ads, block Score Stars, as well as other malicious or misleading web-pages. 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.

Finish words

Now your machine should be free of the browser hijacker related to Score Stars homepage. We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you block unwanted advertisements and undesired harmful web sites) and Zemana Anti Malware (ZAM) (to periodically scan your personal computer for new hijackers and other malware). Probably you are running an older version of Java or Adobe Flash Player. This can be a security risk, so download and install the latest version right now.

If you are still having problems while trying to remove Score Stars redirect from the MS Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome, then ask for help here here.