This page aims to help you remove Startme.online. Our removal instructions work for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, as well as every version of Windows.
In the event that your computer has been infected by a program called Startme.online, please don’t panic and remain calm. This is what’s known as a browser hijacker and the internet is littered with them. You can find them on any file-sharing platform or similar and there’s hardly an internet user out there who’s never encountered one at least once in their lifetime. Browser hijackers like this typically take hold of your browser (hence, ‘hijacker’) and begin to introduce their own rules to it: a new homepage; a new default search engine; ads being generated all over the place, etc. In addition, you can even find yourself often being redirected to various websites without even having clicked anything! To make matters worse, you can be using Chrome, Firefox, Explorer or even some other browser – and you will still be dealing with all the same things. This article is dedicated to explaining exactly what Startme.online is up to and why. But we also aim to help our readers by offering a set of removal instructions that will help you locate and uninstall this hijacker all on your own. You will find those below on this same page.
What is the purpose of a browser hijacker like Startme.online? Should you be concerned?
Well, you likely already are concerned for the safety of your computer and who can blame you? But luckily, Startme.online is not a malicious program and doesn’t pose a real threat to either you or your system. That being said, though, just because it’s not a virus doesn’t mean that it’s perfectly harmless either. We have a category for programs like this called PUPs or potentially unwanted programs and it’s for all those pieces of software that don’t provide users with any useful functionality, but don’t seek to cause them any damage either. Browser hijackers exist for the sole purpose of profiting their developers by generating and displaying large quantities of online ads on users’ screens. The more those users interact with the said ads, the larger the profits. Therefore, a program like Startme.online will be determined to make sure you as a user interact with as many online ads as possible.
But how would it go about that? Of course, there’s the simple aggressive display that can get you to accidently click on a popup or banner, just because they’ve all of a sudden flooded your screen while you were in the middle of something. But that’s not effective enough. So, instead, the developers of such software have programmed it to kind of spy on users’ browsing habits and extract certain information like websites visited, search queries, type of content shared and liked on social media, etc. This is how the hijacker can conclude which of its online ads are more likely to attract your attention. So it can then start making more emphasis on those ads, as opposed to just some random ones.
However, despite this sounding like a very clever tactic, it is still an intrusion of sorts and most people don’t take kindly to that. But even that’s not the worst that can come of Startme.online’s presence on your computer. To make the whole advertising processes possible, these programs usually meddle with your system registry files, as well. This could potentially backfire horribly for your system and result in the infection with viruses of the scariest type like ransomware and Trojans. The reason is that they effectively weaken your system’s defense mechanisms and make it more vulnerable to external threats.
So the obvious solution here to preventing any real damage, as well ridding yourself of the constant annoyance that are the ads is to simply remove Startme.online and be done with it. After that you could also make the effort to be more considerate of you computing habits, so as to prevent other such programs from getting installed. For example, as in the vast majority of cases users tend to install browser hijackers as part of some other program they downloaded for free, you can be more mindful of your download sources. Besides that it will certainly go a long way if you learn to always customize the installation process of any new program. The advanced or manual settings will almost always disclose information regarding any added installs, and you will also have the option to remove them from the setup before you launch the installation process.
SUMMARY:
| Name | Startme.online |
| Type | Browser Hijacker |
| Detection Tool | Some threats reinstall themselves if you don't delete their core files. We recommend downloading SpyHunter to remove harmful programs for you. This may save you hours and ensure you don't harm your system by deleting the wrong files. |
Startme.online Removal
Search Marquis is a high-profile hijacker – you might want to see if you’re not infected with it as well.
You can find the removal guide here.
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