Do you know what Roomba-search.com is?
Roomba-search.com is a new search engine that was designed for the Israeli market, which becomes quite clear at first sight. Although the page may strike you as a Google clone, all the text and labels on this page are in Hebrew language and the search input field types right to left, too. Of course, this does not mean that this infection is limited to Israel since it may be distributed in free software packages that can reach anywhere around the world. Unfortunately, this distribution method also means that there could be other malicious threats on your system as well as potentially unwanted programs. This search engine may expose you to questionable third-party content, such as advertisements and links, on the search results pages. Therefore, we do not recommend that you keep or use this search engine at all. In fact, our researchers advise you to remove Roomba-search.com right away if you do not want to risk further infections or online scams.
There are two main ways for you to end up with such a search engine in your browsers. You can directly install one, for example, when you click on corrupt links or third-party ads. These can be presented to you by suspicious websites or malware hiding on your system. When you click on such content, it is possible that this search engine is set as your home page directly. This can even be done without your knowledge or permission, although it is more likely that you are informed about such browser setting changes but you do not realize or simply ignore it. Sometimes you may be pushed to install such a search engine as part of a free program you are installing. This is a rather aggressive method to market a tool and we believe that you should delete Roomba-search.com if you may have installed it this way.
It is clearly worse when you download a bundle and this search engine is only one of the potential threat sources packed together. You may want to download a free program, which you find available on an unfamiliar website that may as well be a malicious file-sharing page. Whenever you download files and programs from questionable sources, it is quite likely that you will download a bundle containing your targeted free software along with a couple of potentially unwanted applications and malicious programs. Since such a package can contain adware programs, browser hijackers, bad toolbars, Trojans, fake alerts, and more, you can seriously increase the vulnerability of your computer. You could be exposed to all kinds of malicious websites and advertisements, for example.
Roomba-search.com screenshot
Scroll down for full removal instructions
But when you experience an increased number of redirections to suspicious websites, new tabs or new windows opening randomly, and more third-party ads than ever before, chances are there are adware programs on your system. When your computer is infected, it is never really safe for you to go online because you may harm your system even more. Therefore, we recommend that after you delete Roomba-search.com from your browsers, you find a trustworthy malware scanner (it can be a free online scanner that is reputable) and inspect your system to figure out how heavily it is infected and what else you need to eliminate to restore security.
This search engine does not have any extra features really; it provides you with web search capability. There are three links in the top-left corner, out of which two leads to the Gmail login page and one does not seem to work as it ends up on a 404 error page. There are also three links in the bottom-left corner, which seem to be different but all of them open the Google search page. This is quite interesting because this questionable search engine redirects your queries to a competitor, Yahoo. But do not believe for a second that you will only find reliable Yahoo hits on this search results page. Unfortunately, this search engine may modify to results to include its own affiliates’ advertisements and links to their sites. The real problem with this is that its third parties may not all be trustworthy. It is possible that cyber criminals pose as affiliates. This could mean that you may click on corrupt ads and links, and get redirected to malicious websites or simply drop malware infections onto your machine. This is why we recommend that you act now and remove Roomba-search.com from your browsers.
The good news is that it is almost as easy to eliminate this search engine from your computer as you infected it. You need to change the home page setting and that is all. If you have never done this before, you can use our instructions below as a guide. Please remember that this may only be one out of several threats on your computer. Some may not even be this obvious. Therefore, we suggest that you start using a reliable malware removal application, such as SpyHunter.
Remove Roomba-search.com from your browsers
Google Chrome
- Tap Alt+F and select Settings.
- Under On startup, mark the Open a specific page or set of pages option.
- Click Add a new page.
- Enter a new home page URL.
- Delete the undesirable address.
Mozilla Firefox
- Tap Alt+T and open Options.
- Select General on the left.
- Press the Restore to Default button.
Internet Explorer
- Tap Alt+T and navigate to Internet options.
- On the General tab, press the Use default button.
- Press OK.
In non-techie terms:
Roomba-search.com is a new questionable search engine page that was created for Israeli computer users. When this search engine appears in your major browsers, it may indicate that a browser hijacker managed to infiltrate your system. However, when this happens, it is always likely that you will find other malware threats on your computer as well since such threats usually travel the web bundled together. This search engine should not be trusted as it may present to you potentially unsafe third-party ads and links through the search results it may show you. We suggest that you remove Roomba-search.com and all other possibly harmful programs as well. Maybe it is time for you to protect your PC more efficiently; therefore, we advise you to install a reliable anti-malware program.