Gosearch.gg Virus

Browser Hijacker
by Lidia Howler
April 13, 2023

Gosearch.gg

Gosearch.gg is a browser hijacking software that modifies a web browser’s settings to inject unwanted advertisements into the user’s browser. Gosearch.gg may replace the existing home page, the new tab page, or the search engine with another one, without asking for approval.

Gosearch.gg

Have you recently found out that there have been some unauthorized changes in your browser? Has the default homepage or the main search engine been replaced with one that you cannot recall setting up yourself? Or you may have found that your web searches are constantly getting page-redirected to websites that you have never seen before? These are the typical symptoms of a browser hijacker in system. And if you’re still not quite sure, then the crazy amount of pop-up ads, redirect messages, and banners that you have been seeing in your browser lately will surely settle any doubts. Most of them, if not all, will likely be “powered by Gosearch.gg” or “generated by Gosearch.gg”, which is the exact browser hijacker program that you are probably facing. To be more specific, Gosearch.gg is one of the latest browser hijackers released to this date. It has the ability to integrate with all popular browsers, including Chrome, Explorer, Opera, Firefox, etc. Our removal guide at the bottom of this page, however, will walk you through the exact steps needed to uninstall this strange ad-generating software and to remove all the browser changes that have come with it.

SUMMARY:

NameGosearch.gg
TypeBrowser Hijacker
Detection Tool

Please follow all the steps below in order to remove Gosearch.gg!

How to remove Gosearch.gg

  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 Gosearch.gg in the programs list that would show up.
  3. Select Gosearch.gg from the list and click on Uninstall.
  4. Follow the steps in the removal wizard.

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.

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 Gosearch.gg.
  • If you find any of the programs suspicious then uninstall them if they turn out to be linked to Gosearch.gg.
  • 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 Gosearch.gg 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 Gosearch.gg 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 Gosearch.gg 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 Gosearch.gg 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 Gosearch.gg extension
  4. Get rid of Gosearch.gg 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 “Gosearch.gg” or another unwanted app, change it to an address that you’d want to be the browser’s new-tab page.

How to Delete Gosearch.gg

  1. Open task manager
  2. Look for the Gosearch.gg process
  3. Select it and click on End task
  4. Open the file location to delete Gosearch.gg
  • 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 “Gosearch.gg” 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 Gosearch.gg

    1. Click on the home button
    2. Search for Startup Apps
    3. Look for Gosearch.gg in there
    4. Uninstall Gosearch.gg from Startup Apps by turning it off
    • Now you need to carefully search for and uninstall any Gosearch.gg-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 Gosearch.gg 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

    Why is Gosearch.gg on your computer?


    Online advertising is a business for billions. There are many popular online advertising strategies one of which is called Pay Per Click (or PPC in short). The essence of this strategy is that if a given ad that is promoted on the users’ screen gets clicked, the promoters get paid for that. Numerous companies of all kinds and many software developers make money this way with the help of ad-generating and page-redirecting programs like Gosearch.gg, Gosearches.gg and Herofherlittl. They set the browser hijacker to display sponsored commercials of all kinds and make money every time a user clicks on any of them.
    This should explain the wild amount of pop-ups and banners you are probably seeing all over your monitor. While making it quite difficult to navigate past the advertisements, or to remove them, Gosearch.gg may often create ads that target you directly in order to attract your attention more effectively. This is done with the help of some data collection. Usually, information relevant to your surfing habits gets collected from your browser and is later used to adjust the generated ads according to your predicted preferences and interests. You might find, for instance, that some of the pop-ups you’ve seen today are related to something that you have looked up yesterday, or an hour ago.
    This activity is often considered as a violation of one’s privacy and is even thought to be an act that a virus would do. Nevertheless, Gosearch.gg is not a virus – this is just an advertising program. However, this does not put the browser hijacker in the category of completely harmless software. To be perfectly clear, the browser hijackers are not malicious by themselves, but if you click on some of their ads, they might potentially expose you to malicious threats, such as Trojans or Ransomware. The thing is you may accidentally be met with malvertisements, which are false advertisements that either redirect you to unsafe websites with viruses, or directly install Ransomware, Spyware, or other malware on your device. This is probably the most common concern related to this software, which gives some users a strong reason to remove it. If you are one of them, and you want to uninstall Gosearch.gg, we suggest you scroll down to the removal guide that follows, and use its instructions.


    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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