Ventsislav has been covering the latest malware, software and newest tech developments at SensorsTechForum for 3 years now. He started out as a network administrator. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for discovery of new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management and then Network Administration, he found his passion within cybersecrurity and is a strong believer in basic education of every user towards online safety.
Ventsislav has been covering the latest malware, software and newest tech developments at SensorsTechForum for 3 years now. He started out as a network administrator. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for discovery of new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management and then Network Administration, he found his passion within cybersecrurity and is a strong believer in basic education of every user towards online safety.
Ventsislav has been covering the latest malware, software and newest tech developments at SensorsTechForum for 3 years now. He started out as a network administrator. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for discovery of new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management and then Network Administration, he found his passion within cybersecrurity and is a strong believer in basic education of every user towards online safety.
This blog post has been made with the sole purpose of explaining to you what is the search.watchtvnow.co browser hijacker and showing you methods on how you can remove it from your computer and stop it from slowing your PC down.
A new browser hijacking software, associated with the web link Search.watchtvnow.co has been detected by security experts. The browser hijacker is a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program), whose main goal is to convince users that it is a safe and wanted tool that can help out users with their online browsing experience in one or more ways. In reality however, the real purpose of Search.watchtvnow.co browser hijacker is to change and modify the web browser settings and to also heavily display advertisements on the infected computers of victims.
Threat Summary
Name
Type
Browser Hijacker
Short Description
Aims to modify the settings on your web browser in order to get it to cause browser redirects and display different advertisements.
Symptoms
Your web browser begins to display various types of online advertisements, which results in slowing down of your PC.
Distribution Method
Bundled downloads. Web pages which may advertise it.
There are many methods via which these types of programs end up being installed on the computers of victims without them actually realising it. The most common way of distribution is via software bundling. You may encounter the Search.watchtvnow.co hijacker being advertised as a legitimate program which aims to help you out in watching movies and other media content online by being added as a toolbar on your browser. This advertisement may be shown to you in the installer of another free program you may be trying to set up. There, the Search.watchtvnow.co may be presented as a free extra or an optional offer and these types of adware install steps may be encountered when you perform an installation in the “Advanced” or “Custom” installation modes.
Another way of the Search.watchtvnow.co program being spread is usually by being advertised on a site as a tool to download if you want to watch a movie of some sort. These types of sites are often video streaming sites for pirated movies and to play the movie, the ad asks you to install a plug-in which may end up to be the Search.watchtvnow.co browser hijacker.
In addition to those methods of distribution there is also another way via which these types of programs may appear on the computers of victims and it is often done by adding a suspicious program, like a Windows Activator or other type of hack tool. Such tools may automatically connect to download sites for unwanted software and install the Search.watchtvnow.co hijacker directly on your web browser.
Search.watchtvnow.co Hijacker – Analysis
When installed on your web browser, you may begin to see the main home screen of the Search.watchtvnow.co browser hijacker:
As soon as it is installed, the hijacker may also display a lot of different pop-ups on some web browsers, that ask you to allow it to perform different types of modifications on your web browser, such as to accept push notifications:
When we have checked the web page Search.watchtvnow.co thoroughly, first thing we noticed was that when you use it to search something online, you immediately become redirected to a third-party search site (search.yahoo.com) and this site is modified allegedly by the hijacker to display an enormous amount of ads which take up to 80% of the first page screen as seen below:
In addition to this, we have also noticed cookies to be residing on the computer of the test machine as these cookies often were from third-party websites, which we found to have little or nothing in common with the Search.watchtvnow.co hijacker itself.
In our opinion, the Search.watchtvnow.co browser hijacker is another one of those applications that promise to be useful, but only cramp up your computer with pop-ups, banners, ad-supported search results and other types of ads. The risks associated with them may be many:
Redirecting you to malicious website that may infect your computer with viruses.
Collect information from your online browsing activities via cookies and other locally stored technologies.
Advertise scam sites whose main goal is to trick you into either calling Fake Tech Support scammers or downloading hoax antivirus programs. These sites may claim your system is infected to get you to pay a lot of money to fix it in the end, whereas in reality, there may not be such threats.
Either way, this plus the detail that it may belong to
Polarity Technologies, known to create potentially unsafe products, makes Search.watchtvnow.co browser hijacker a program which is indirectly dangerous for your computer and if you encounter it, removal is recommended.
Remove Search.watchtvnow.co PUP from Your Machine
If you are convinced that Search.watchtvnow.co is dangerous for your computer and want to remove it, we have created the removal instructions underneath that will help you achieve your goal. If you want to remove the Search.watchtvnow.co hijacker manually from your browser and PC, you can try it by following the first two steps. However, be advised that these programs tend to stay persistent on victim computers and for their removal to be able to be done, a more advanced approach is often necessary. According to tech experts, the best approach towards removing PUPs, like Search.watchtvnow.co automatically is to download an advanced anti-malware software, the main purpose of which is to scan for and remove all the files and objects, related to Search.watchtvnow.co hijacker automatically so that you eliminate the chance of the program showing ads on your computer.
Note! Your computer system may be affected by or other threats. Scan Your PC with SpyHunter SpyHunter is a powerful malware removal tool designed to help users with in-depth system security analysis, detection and removal of threats such as . Keep in mind, that SpyHunter’s scanner is only for malware detection. If SpyHunter detects malware on your PC, you will need to purchase SpyHunter’s malware removal tool to remove the malware threats. Read our SpyHunter 5 review. Click on the corresponding links to check SpyHunter’s EULA, Privacy Policy and Threat Assessment Criteria.
To remove follow these steps:
1. Uninstall malicious programs from Windows
OFFER
Manual Removal Usually Takes Time and You Risk Damaging Your Files If Not Careful!
We Recommend To Scan Your PC with SpyHunter
Keep in mind, that SpyHunter’s scanner is only for malware detection. If SpyHunter detects malware on your PC, you will need to purchase SpyHunter’s malware removal tool to remove the malware threats. Read our SpyHunter 5 review. Click on the corresponding links to check SpyHunter’s EULA, Privacy Policy and Threat Assessment Criteria
How to Uninstall malicious programs from Windows:
Here is a method in few easy steps that should be able to uninstall most programs.No matter if you are using Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista or XP, those steps will get the job done. Dragging the program or its folder to the recycle bin can be a very bad decision. If you do that, bits and pieces of the program are left behind, and that can lead to unstable work of your PC, errors with the file type associations and other unpleasant activities. The proper way to get a program off your computer is to Uninstall it. To do that:
Hold the Windows Logo Button and “R” on your keyboard. A Pop-up window will appear (fig.1).
In the field type in “appwiz.cpl” and press ENTER (fig.2).
This will open a window with all the programs installed on the PC. Select the program that you want to remove, and press “Uninstall” (fig.3).
Follow the instructions above and you will successfully uninstall most programs.
2. Clean your Browser and Registry from
Remove by cleaning your Browser and Registry.
Remove an extension from Mozilla FirefoxRemove an extension from Google Chrome Remove an extension from Internet Explorer Remove an extension from Microsoft Edge Fix registry entries created by on your PC.
Start Mozilla Firefox. Open the menu window
Select the “Add-ons” icon from the menu.
Select the unwanted extension and click “Remove“
After the extension is removed, restart Mozilla Firefox by closing it from the red “X” button at the top right corner and start it again.
Start Google Chrome and open the drop menu
Move the cursor over “Tools” and then from the extended menu choose “Extensions“
From the opened “Extensions” menu locate the unwanted extension and click on its “Remove” button.
After the extension is removed, restart Google Chrome by closing it from the red “X” button at the top right corner and start it again.
Start Internet Explorer:
Click on the gear icon labeled ‘Tools’ to open the drop menu and select ‘Manage Add-ons’
In the ‘Manage Add-ons’ window.
Select the extension you want to remove and then click ‘Disable’. A pop-up window will appear to inform you that you are about to disable the selected extension, and some more add-ons might be disabled as well. Leave all the boxes checked, and click ‘Disable’.
After the unwanted extension has been removed, restart Internet Explorer by closing it from the red ‘X’ button located at the top right corner and start it again.
Start Edge
Open the drop menu by clicking on the icon at the top right corner.
From the drop menu select “Extensions”.
Choose the suspected malicious extension you want to remove and then click on the gear icon.
Remove the malicious extension by scrolling down and then clicking on Uninstall.
Some malicious scripts may modify the registry entries on your computer to change different settings. This is why cleaning your Windows Registry Database is recommended. Since the tutorial on how to do this is a bit long and tampering with registries could damage your computer if not done properly you should refer and follow our instructive article about fixing registry entries, especially if you are unexperienced in that area.
IMPORTANT! Before starting the Automatic Removal below, please boot back into Normal mode, in case you are currently in Safe Mode. This will enable you to install and use SpyHunter 5 successfully.
Use SpyHunter to scan for malware and unwanted programs
3. Scan for malware and unwanted programs with SpyHunter Anti-Malware Tool
Scan your PC and Remove with SpyHunter Anti-Malware Tool and back up your data
1. Install SpyHunter to scan for and remove them.2. Scan with SpyHunter, Detect and Remove . Back up your data to secure it from malware in the future.
Step 1: Click on the “Download” button to proceed to SpyHunter’s download page.
It is recommended to run a scan before purchasing the full version of the software to make sure that the current version of the malware can be detected by SpyHunter. Click on the corresponding links to check SpyHunter’s EULA, Privacy Policy and Threat Assessment Criteria.
Step 2: Guide yourself by the download instructions provided for each browser.
Step 3: After you have installed SpyHunter, wait for it to update automatically.
Step 1: After the update process has finished, click on the ‘Malware/PC Scan’ tab. A new window will appear. Click on ‘Start Scan’.
Step 2: After SpyHunter has finished scanning your PC for any files of the associated threat and found them, you can try to get them removed automatically and permanently by clicking on the ‘Next’ button.
Step 3: If any threats have been removed, it is highly recommended to restart your PC.
Back up your data to secure it against attacks in the future
IMPORTANT! Before reading the Windows backup instructions, we highly recommend to back up your data with a cloud backup solution and insure your files against any type of loss, even from the most severe threats. We recommend you to read more about it and to download SOS Online Backup.
Ventsislav has been covering the latest malware, software and newest tech developments at SensorsTechForum for 3 years now. He started out as a network administrator. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for discovery of new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management and then Network Administration, he found his passion within cybersecrurity and is a strong believer in basic education of every user towards online safety.
Ventsislav has been covering the latest malware, software and newest tech developments at SensorsTechForum for 3 years now. He started out as a network administrator. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for discovery of new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management and then Network Administration, he found his passion within cybersecrurity and is a strong believer in basic education of every user towards online safety.
This blog post has been made with the sole purpose of explaining to you what is the search.watchtvnow.co browser hijacker and showing you methods on how you can remove it from your computer and stop it from slowing your PC down.
Remove an extension from Mozilla Firefox
Remove an extension from Google Chrome
Remove an extension from Internet Explorer
Remove an extension from Microsoft Edge
Fix registry entries created by on your PC.
1. Install SpyHunter to scan for and remove them.
Back up your data to secure it from malware in the future.
