The Astralsearch.com is a malicious browser hijacker which could bring certain problems to your computer. After its setup, it makes various changes to your browser’s settings, making your start page, new tab and search engine by default to become its own web site. You may have some problems like being rerouted to undesired web-pages, receiving lots of intrusive pop-up ads, and personal info being collected without any knowledge, while this hijacker is installed on your machine.
http://astralsearch.com/dazzled/?keyword …
When you are performing searches using the web-browser that has been affected by Astralsearch.com, the search results will be returned from Bing, Yahoo or Google Custom Search. The authors of Astralsearch.com hijacker are most likely doing this to generate advertisement revenue from the advertisements opened in the search results.
Table of contents
- What is Astralsearch.com
- How to remove Astralsearch.com from personal computer
- How to stop Astralsearch.com home page
- Why is my browser redirected to Astralsearch.com?
- To sum up
While redirecting, your browser’s status bar may show the following messages: ‘Waiting for Astralsearch.com’, ‘Transferring data from Astralsearch.com’, ‘Looking up Astralsearch.com’, ‘Read Astralsearch.com’, ‘Connected to Astralsearch.com’.
The browser hijacker like Astralsearch.com often change all internet browser shortcuts that located on your Desktop to force you visit various intrusive web-sites and display unwanted pop up ads. As a result, your web browser can still redirect you to an unwanted web-page despite your web-browser is actually free of hijacker.
We suggest you to get rid of Astralsearch.com redirect and free your computer of hijacker as quickly as possible, until the presence of the hijacker has not led to even worse consequences. You need to follow the tutorial below that will assist you to completely remove Astralsearch.com homepage, using only the built-in Windows features and a few of specialized free utilities.
How to remove Astralsearch.com from personal computer
In the step-by-step guidance below, we will try to cover the Chrome, Internet Explorer, FF and MS Edge and provide general advice to remove Astralsearch.com home page. You may find some minor differences in your Windows install. No matter, you should be okay if you follow the steps outlined below: delete all suspicious and unknown applications, reset internet browsers settings, fix web-browsers shortcuts, run free malicious software removal tools. Read it once, after doing so, please print this page as you may need to close your internet browser or restart your PC system.
How to get rid of Astralsearch.com search without any software
Read this section to know how to manually remove the Astralsearch.com hijacker. Even if the steps does not work for you, there are several free malware removers below that can easily handle such browser hijacker infections.
Uninstall Astralsearch.com associated software by using Windows Control Panel
First of all, check the list of installed software on your personal computer and uninstall all unknown and recently installed software. If you see an unknown program with incorrect spelling or varying capital letters, it have most likely been installed by malware and you should clean it off first with malicious software removal utility such as Zemana Anti-malware.
Windows 8, 8.1, 10
First, click Windows button
, then click Search 
. Type ‘Control panel’and press Enter like below.
After the ‘Control Panel’ opens, click the ‘Uninstall a program’ link under Programs category as shown in the following example.
You will see the ‘Uninstall a program’ panel as displayed on the screen below.
Very carefully look around the entire list of software installed on your system. Most likely, one or more of them are responsible for the appearance of pop ups and browser redirect to the intrusive Astralsearch.com web site. If you have many programs installed, you can help simplify the search of malicious programs by sort the list by date of installation. Once you have found a suspicious, unwanted or unused application, right click to it, after that click ‘Uninstall’.
Windows XP, Vista, 7
First, press ‘Start’ button and select ‘Control Panel’ at right panel as on the image below.
After the Windows ‘Control Panel’ opens, you need to click ‘Uninstall a program’ under ‘Programs’ as on the image below.
You will see a list of applications installed on your machine. We recommend to sort the list by date of installation to quickly find the programs that were installed last. Most likely they responsibility for the appearance of pop ups and web browser redirect. If you are in doubt, you can always check the program by doing a search for her name in Google, Yahoo or Bing. After the program which you need to remove is found, simply click on its name, and then click ‘Uninstall’ as on the image below.
Disinfect the browser’s shortcuts
Important to know, most antimalware applications which are able to remove browser hijacker, but unable to find and recover changed shortcuts. So, you need to fix the desktop shortcuts for your Google Chrome, IE, Firefox and Microsoft Edge internet browsers manually.
To clear the web browser shortcut, right-click to it and select Properties. On the Shortcut tab, locate the Target field. Click inside, you will see a vertical line – arrow pointer, move it (using -> arrow key on your keyboard) to the right as possible. You will see a text like “http://site.address” which has been added here. You need to delete it.
When the text is removed, click the OK button. You need to clean all shortcuts of all your browsers, as they may be infected too.
Remove Astralsearch.com redirect from Internet Explorer
By resetting Internet Explorer browser you restore your web-browser settings to its default state. This is basic when troubleshooting problems that might have been caused by hijacker infection such as Astralsearch.com.
First, launch the Microsoft Internet Explorer. Next, press the button in the form of gear (
). It will display the Tools drop-down menu, click the “Internet Options” as shown below.
In the “Internet Options” window click on the Advanced tab, then click the Reset button. The Microsoft Internet Explorer will display the “Reset Internet Explorer settings” window as displayed on the image below. Select the “Delete personal settings” check box, then click “Reset” button.
You will now need to restart your system for the changes to take effect.
Remove Astralsearch.com redirect from FF
If the Firefox web browser program is hijacked, then resetting its settings can help. The Reset feature is available on all modern version of Mozilla Firefox. A reset can fix many issues by restoring FF settings like new tab page, startpage and search provider by default to its default state. It’ll save your personal information such as saved passwords, bookmarks, and open tabs.
Start the Firefox and click the menu button (it looks like three stacked lines) at the top right of the internet browser screen. Next, press the question-mark icon at the bottom of the drop-down menu. It will open the slide-out menu.
Select the “Troubleshooting information”. If you’re unable to access the Help menu, then type “about:support” in your address bar and press Enter. It bring up the “Troubleshooting Information” page as shown in the figure below.
Click the “Refresh Firefox” button at the top right of the Troubleshooting Information page. Select “Refresh Firefox” in the confirmation dialog box. The Firefox will begin a process to fix your problems that caused by the hijacker which cause a redirect to Astralsearch.com web site. When, it’s finished, click the “Finish” button.
Get rid of Astralsearch.com startpage from Google Chrome
If your Chrome web-browser is re-directed to annoying Astralsearch.com page, it may be necessary to completely reset your internet browser program to its default settings.
- First start the Chrome and press Menu button (small button in the form of three horizontal stripes).
- It will open the Google Chrome main menu. Select “Settings” option.
- You will see the Chrome’s settings page. Scroll down and press “Show advanced settings” link.
- Scroll down again and press the “Reset settings” button.
- The Chrome will open the reset profile settings page as shown on the image above.
- Next click the “Reset” button.
- Once this process is done, your web-browser’s newtab page, start page and search engine by default will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the article How to reset Chrome settings to default.
Scan your PC system and remove Astralsearch.com with free utilities
Many antivirus companies have developed software that help detect and remove hijacker, and thereby return installed internet browsers settings. Below is a a few of the free programs you may want to use. Your personal computer can have a huge number of PUPs, ad-supported software and browser hijackers installed at the same time, so we suggest, if any unwanted or harmful application returns after restarting the PC, then start your PC into Safe Mode and run the anti-malware tool again.
Run Zemana Anti Malware to remove Astralsearch.com
Zemana highly recommended, because it can detect security threats such ‘ad supported’ software and hijackers that most ‘classic’ antivirus applications fail to pick up on. Moreover, if you have any Astralsearch.com browser hijacker removal problems which cannot be fixed by this utility automatically, then Zemana Free provides 24X7 online assistance from the highly experienced support staff.
Now you can install and use Zemana to delete Astralsearch.com from your browser by following the steps below:
Click the link below to download Zemana Anti Malware (ZAM) installer named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup on your computer.
164112 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
Start the setup file after it has been downloaded successfully and then follow the prompts to setup this tool on your computer.
During setup you can change certain settings, but we advise you don’t make any changes to default settings.
When installation is complete, this malware removal utility will automatically run and update itself. You will see its main window as displayed on the screen below.
Now click the “Scan” button to perform a system scan for the hijacker infection which redirects your web browser to annoying Astralsearch.com site. A system scan can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on your machine. When a malicious software, adware or PUPs are found, the count of the security threats will change accordingly. Wait until the the scanning is complete.
Once it has finished scanning, it’ll open you the results. In order to remove all threats, simply click “Next” button.
The Zemana Free will start to remove hijacker which created to redirect your browser to the Astralsearch.com web-page. Once the cleaning procedure is done, you may be prompted to reboot your PC to make the change take effect.
Use Malwarebytes to get rid of hijacker infection
Manual Astralsearch.com removal requires some computer skills. Some files and registry entries that created by the browser hijacker can be not completely removed. We advise that run the Malwarebytes Free that are completely clean your PC of browser hijacker infection. Moreover, the free program will help you to remove malicious software, potentially unwanted programs, ‘ad supported’ software and toolbars that your system can be infected too.
- Download Malwarebytes (MBAM) on your computer from the link below.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
326461 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
- After downloading is done, close all programs and windows on your machine. Open a file location. Double-click on the icon that’s named mb3-setup.
- Further, press Next button and follow the prompts.
- Once setup is done, press the “Scan Now” button It will scan through the whole system for the browser hijacker infection that redirects your internet browser to intrusive Astralsearch.com web-page. Depending on your machine, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. When a threat is found, the count of the security threats will change accordingly. Wait until the the scanning is complete.
- After it has completed scanning your computer, you will be displayed the list of all found threats on your computer. In order to remove all threats, simply click “Quarantine Selected”. When disinfection is finished, you can be prompted to restart your machine.
The following video offers a steps on how to get rid of hijacker infections, ad supported software and other malicious software with Malwarebytes.
Remove Astralsearch.com browser hijacker and malicious extensions with AdwCleaner
AdwCleaner is a free removal tool that can be downloaded and use to get rid of browser hijackers, ad supported software, malware, PUPs, toolbars and other threats from your machine. You can use this utility to detect threats even if you have an antivirus or any other security program.
- Download AdwCleaner on your MS Windows Desktop by clicking on the link below.
AdwCleaner download
225298 downloads
Version: 8.4.1
Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
Category: Security tools
Update: October 5, 2024
- Select the file location as Desktop, and then click Save.
- When downloading is finished, start the AdwCleaner, double-click the adwcleaner_xxx.exe file.
- If the “User Account Control” prompts, click Yes to continue.
- Read the “Terms of use”, and press Accept.
- In the AdwCleaner window, click the “Scan” It will scan through the whole machine for the hijacker that causes web-browsers to show unwanted Astralsearch.com web-site. A scan can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the count of files on your PC and the speed of your computer. While the tool is checking, you may see number of objects it has identified either as being malware.
- When it completes the scan, the results are displayed in the scan report. Make sure all threats have ‘checkmark’ and click “Clean”. If the AdwCleaner will ask you to restart your computer, press “OK”.
The steps shown in detail in the following video.
How to stop Astralsearch.com home page
Running an ad blocker program such as AdGuard is an effective way to alleviate the risks. Additionally, ad blocker applications will also protect you from harmful advertisements and web sites, and, of course, block redirection chain to Astralsearch.com and similar web pages.
- Download AdGuard program by clicking on the following link and save it to your Desktop.
Adguard download
26657 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
- When downloading is complete, start the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” program window. Follow the prompts.
- When the install is complete, press “Skip” to close the installation application and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial which will allow you get to know AdGuard better.
- In most cases, the default settings are enough and you don’t need to change anything. Each time, when you run your personal computer, AdGuard will start automatically and block ads, pages such Astralsearch.com, as well as other malicious or misleading pages. For an overview of all the features of the program, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the icon named AdGuard, that is located on your desktop.
Why is my browser redirected to Astralsearch.com?
The Astralsearch.com browser hijacker actively distributed with free applications, along with the installer of these programs. Therefore, it’s very important, when installing an unknown application even downloaded from known or big hosting web page, read the Terms of use and the Software license, as well as to select the Manual, Advanced or Custom installation method. In this method, you can disable the setup of unneeded modules and applications and protect your machine from such hijackers as the Astralsearch.com. Unfortunately, most users when installing unknown software, simply click the Next button, and do not read any information that the free software open them during its setup. This leads to the fact that the browser settings are replaced and web-browser’s newtab page, startpage and search engine by default set to Astralsearch.com.
To sum up
Once you have complete the few simple steps outlined above, your machine should be clean from malware and browser hijackers. The Google Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Internet Explorer will no longer open Astralsearch.com annoying start page on startup. Unfortunately, if the step by step tutorial does not help you, then you have caught a new browser hijacker infection, and then the best way – ask for help.
- Download HijackThis by clicking on the link below and save it to your Desktop.
HijackThis download
4711 downloads
Version: 2.0.5
Author: OpenSource
Category: Security tools
Update: November 7, 2015
- Double-click on the HijackThis icon. Next click “Do a system scan only” button.
- Once that process is finished, the scan button will read “Save log”, press it. Save this log to your desktop.
- Create a Myantispyware account here. Once you’ve registered, check your e-mail for a confirmation link, and confirm your account. After that, login.
- Copy and paste the contents of the HijackThis log into your post. If you are posting for the first time, please start a new thread by using the “New Topic” button in the Spyware Removal forum. When posting your HJT log, try to give us some details about your problems, so we can try to help you more accurately.
- Wait for one of our trained “Security Team” or Site Administrator to provide you with knowledgeable assistance tailored to your problem with the undesired Astralsearch.com .
