Do you know what Ysearch Tab is?
Ysearch Tab is a potentially unwanted program that poses as a legitimate extension that allegedly can help you browse the web. This extension creates an illusion that it is a product of Yahoo, but, in reality, it was developed by an unknown creator who might have malicious intentions. Whether this extension was installed illegally or with your permission, you need to figure out the best way to delete it from your Mozilla Firefox browser. At this moment, this is the only browser that the PUP (short for “potentially unwanted program”) is compatible with. Hopefully, that will not change, but if you find that the PUP has corrupted a different browser on your PC, you can report it via the comments section below. Overall, you must remove Ysearch Tab regardless of how it manifests.
According to our research, the suspicious Ysearch Tab does not have an official download page. Instead, the installer of this potentially unwanted program is spread via pop-ups shown by malicious software that might be active on your PC. Also, the pop-ups could be shown via corrupted websites. Needless to say, we do not recommend installing unfamiliar programs – regardless of how attractive they are – via unfamiliar sources. If you do this, you are bound to let in malware sooner or later, and since there are hundreds and thousands of threats more dangerous than Ysearch Tab, we certainly recommend being more cautious. All in all, right now, malware is likely to be active on your PC. Therefore, we recommend installing a legitimate malware scanner immediately. It will let you know which threats you must delete.
Once Ysearch Tab is installed, it is operated as an extension (the file of the extension, “{063DA41A-2561-401B-91FA-AC75E460F4EB}.xpi”, can be found under %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{profile name folder}\extensions). The main purpose of this suspicious piece of software is to redirect you to Yahoo Search. That, of course, does not seem very threatening, considering that Yahoo Search is a well-known and respected search engine. Unfortunately, the creator of the PUP exploits it exactly because it is popular. Because of that, you are more likely to trust the results that are shown to you. The bad news is that they can be compromised as sponsored results could be included. These search results are not the same ones you would see if you used search.yahoo.com without any mediators. In the past, Ysearch Tab could redirect searches via ysearchtab.com, but, most recently, this hijacker is no longer in use.
You should no longer wonder whether or not you need to delete Ysearch Tab. Instead, you should think about how you need to do it. You can get rid of this potentially unwanted program using the guide below. At the end of the day, it is just an extension, and removing it is not difficult. Nonetheless, it is clear that other threats might be active on your PC, and if they are, you need to look at the bigger picture: Can you erase every single threat yourself? If you cannot, you need the help of anti-malware software. If you install it, you will not need to worry about the removal of Ysearch Tab or any other threat. Furthermore, you will not need to worry about other threats as well because of the protection that this software can enable.
Remove Ysearch Tab
- Launch Mozilla Firefox.
- Tap Ctrl+Shift+A to open the Add-ons Manager menu.
- In the menu on the left click Extensions.
- Remove the undesirable add-on.
- Tap Alt+T to access the Tools menu and click Options.
- In the menu on the left click Search.
- Remove the unwanted provider and then set the desired one.
In non-techie terms:
You need to delete Ysearch Tab from your Mozilla Firefox browser as soon as possible because this potentially unwanted program is not as reliable and beneficial as it might appear to be at first. This PUP is NOT a product of Yahoo, and it redirects your searches to Yahoo Search only so that you could be tricked into interacting with sponsored content that the PUP can inject. It was found that the PUP can employ a browser hijacker, ysearchtab.com, to redirect users, but in most recent cases, this hijacker was omitted, and the PUP itself redirected to Yahoo Search. Of course, if the hijacker is installed, it must be deleted as well. You can remove Ysearch Tab and the hijacker using the guide above, but we have to remind you that more serious threats might be active on your PC. We advise using an anti-malware tool for that.