Spin Maze Virus

Browser Hijacker
by Lidia Howler
November 3, 2022

Spin Maze

Spin Maze is a piece of software that affects the users’ default web browser, whether it be Chrome, Firefox, Edge or another one, that’s why it is classified as a browser hijacker. Usually, Spin Maze may introduce a new search engine or an unfamiliar toolbar on your browser or modify the domain of your homepage.

Spin Maze Virus

This typically results in numerous auto-redirects to various pages, a never-ending stream of ads, pop-ups, banners and an overall web browsing interference. What’s very disturbing for a lot of people is that the browser hijacker will make all these changes without asking for approval. You actually need to completely uninstall Spin Maze from your system, otherwise, you will constantly experience ad trouble if you wish to remove the required changes from your browser. Fortunately, this can be done relatively easily and is not as complicated as dealing with Ransomware, a Trojan or another web virus. In fact, we will show you the steps in the removal guide below.

Spinmaze 

You probably know how annoying Spinmaze might be since you are reading this already. Spinmaze could redirect your searches to unknown web locations, load your screen and all the pages that you visit with numerous advertisements and create an intolerable browsing disturbance.

Name Spin Maze
Type Browser Hijacker
Detection Tool

 If you have a Windows virus, continue with the guide below.

If you have a Mac virus, please use our How to remove Ads on Mac guide.

If you have an Android virus, please use our Android Malware Removal guide.

If you have an iPhone virus, please use our iPhone Virus Removal guide

Please follow all the steps below in order to remove Spin Maze!

How to remove Spin Maze

  1. First, click the Start Menu on your Windows PC.
  2. Type Programs and Settings in the Start Menu, click the first item, and find Spin Maze in the programs list that would show up.
  3. Select Spin Maze from the list and click on Uninstall.
  4. Follow the steps in the removal wizard.

What we suggest you do first is, check the list of programs that are presently installed on the infected device and uninstall any rogue software that you find there:

  • From the Start Menu, navigate to Control Panel ->>> Programs and Features ->>> Uninstall a Program.
  • Next, carefully search for unfamiliar programs or programs that have been installed recently and could be related to Spin Maze.
  • If you find any of the programs suspicious then uninstall them if they turn out to be linked to Spin Maze.
  • If a notification appears on your screen when you try to uninstall a specific questionable program prompting you to just alter it or repair it, make sure you choose NO and complete the steps from the removal wizard.

Remove Spin Maze from Chrome

  1. Click on the three dots in the right upper corner
  2. Go to more tools
  3. Now select extensions
  4. Remove the Spin Maze extension
  • Once you open Chrome, click on the three-dots icon to open the browser’s menu, go to More Tools/ More Options, and then to Extensions.
  • Again, find the items on that page that could be linked to Spin Maze and/or that might be causing problems in the browser and delete them.
  • Afterwards, go to this folder: Computer > C: > Users > *Your User Account* > App Data > Local > Google > Chrome > User Data. In there, you will find a folder named Default – you should change its name to Backup Default and restart the PC.
  • Note that the App Data folder is normally hidden so you’d have to first make the hidden files and folders on your PC visible before you can access it.

How to get rid of Spin Maze on FF/Edge/etc.

  1. Open the browser and select the menu icon.
  2. From the menu, click on the Add-ons button.
  3. Look for the Spin Maze extension
  4. Get rid of Spin Maze by removing it from extensions

If using Firefox:

  • Open Firefox
  • Select the three parallel lines menu and go to Add-ons.
  • Find the unwanted add-on and delete it from the browser – if there is more than one unwanted extension, remove all of them.
  • Go to the browser menu again, select Options, and then click on Home from the sidebar to the left.
  • Check the current addresses for the browser’s homepage and new-tab page and change them if they are currently set to address(es) you don’t know or trust.

If using MS Edge/IE:

  • Start Edge
  • Select the browser menu and go to Extensions.
  • Find and uninstall any Edge extensions that look undesirable and unwanted.
  • Select Settings from the browser menu and click on Appearance.
  • Check the new-tab page address of the browser and if it has been modified by “Spin Maze” or another unwanted app, change it to an address that you’d want to be the browser’s new-tab page.

How to Delete Spin Maze

  1. Open task manager
  2. Look for the Spin Maze process
  3. Select it and click on End task
  4. Open the file location to delete Spin Maze
  • Access the Task Manager by pressing together the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys and then selecting Task Manager.
  • Open Processes and there try to find a process with the name of the unwanted software. If you find it, select it with the right button of the mouse and click on the Open File Location option.
  • If you don’t see a “Spin Maze” process in the Task Manager, look for another suspicious process with an unusual name. It is likely that the unwanted process would be using lots of RAM and CPU so pay attention to the number of resources each process is using.
  • Tip: If you think you have singled out the unwanted process but are not sure, it’s always a good idea to search for information about it on the Internet – this should give you a general idea if the process is a legitimate one from a regular program or from your OS or if it is indeed likely linked to the adware.
  • If you find another suspicious process, open its File Location too.
  • Once in the File Location folder for the suspicious process, start testing all of the files that are stored there by dragging them to our free online scanner available below.
  • Each file will be scanned with up to 64 antivirus programs to ensure maximum accuracy
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    • If the scanner finds malware in any of the files, return to the Processes tab in the Task Manager, select the suspected process, and then select the End Process option to quit it.
    • Go back to the folder where the files of that process are located and delete all of the files that you are allowed to delete. If all files get deleted normally, exit the folder and delete that folder too. If one or more of the files showed an error message when you tried to delete them, leave them for now and return to try to delete them again once you’ve completed the rest of the guide.

    How to Uninstall Spin Maze

    1. Click on the home button
    2. Search for Startup Apps
    3. Look for Spin Maze in there
    4. Uninstall Spin Maze from Startup Apps by turning it off
    • Now you need to carefully search for and uninstall any Hostingcloud. racing-related entries from the Registry. The easiest way to do this is to open the Registry Editor app (type Regedit in the windows search field and press Enter) and then open a Find dialog (CTRL+F key combination) where you have to type the name of the threat. 
    • Perform a search by clicking on the Find Next button and delete any detected results. Do this as many times as needed until no more results are found. 
    • After that, to ensure that there are no remaining entries lined to Spin Maze in the Registry, go manually to the following directories and delete them:
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Random Directory. 
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run/Random
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Main/Random
    Is Spin Maze dangerous?

    Yet can this be a risk for your PC? The security experts don’t think so. A browser hijacker is pretty harmless in comparison to computer viruses or threats such as ransomware and Trojans. Spin Maze itself is designed to advertise different items on your screen so you can click them. These could be different physical products, software, web pages, etc. Thanks to the famous pay-per-click remuneration model, the creators of this software can gain some revenue from your clicks. It is not an illegal or malicious activity and, in fact, it affects nothing except your browser. Nonetheless, there may be some people who may wish to uninstall the browser hijacker and remove its ads.  

    What can Spin Maze do?

    Although there are no harmful or malicious activities associated with Spin Maze, Frmsepmain or browser hijackers in general, users can find a reason to uninstall these programs. Traffic data collection is one of them. Browser hijackers can be used as online advertising tools that can capture browsing data like your browsing history, your bookmarks or the pages that you frequently visit. These details are usually used as useful marketing information which allows the hijacker developers to tailor the ads you see on your screen to your interests. This increases the chances that you will click on some of them and thus increase the pay-per-click revenue. Nonetheless, some people may feel like their privacy has been violated by this data-collection service and that their online activities may not be monitored and used for marketing purposes but for something else.
    Besides, occasionally, they may be redirected to websites with questionable content. Hackers commonly use such redirects and fake ads to distribute threats such as the infamous Ransomware and Trojans. Therefore, clicking on everything that appears on your computer’s screen or keeping a program that may reroute you to web locations you don’t want is not a good idea.


    About the author

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    Lidia Howler

    Lidia is a web content creator with years of experience in the cyber-security sector. She helps readers with articles on malware removal and online security. Her strive for simplicity and well-researched information provides users with easy-to-follow It-related tips and step-by-step tutorials.

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