Computer security researchers have confirmed that the MP3 Search Engine is a browser hijacker. When downloaded and started onto a PC system, this hijacker quickly alters the Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and IE internet browser’s settings such as newtab, homepage and search engine to its own web site without any permission. For this reason, every time you launch the affected browser, it being redirected to the MP3 Search Engine web page. Even though you have uninstalled its address from your web-browser’s settings, after restart your web-browser, the annoying page still appears.
If your PC is affected with MP3 Search Engine browser hijacker infection, every time you open your internet browser you will see this web-site. Of course you can setup your start page again, but next time you run a web browser you’ll see that MP3 Search Engine return. As mentioned above, the browser hijacker can modify the default search engine on this unwanted web-site too, so all your search queries will be re-directed to MP3 Search Engine. Thus the authors of the hijacker can collect the search terms of your queries, and redirect you to annoying web-pages.
Often, the computer that has been infected by MP3 Search Engine hijacker, will be also infected with adware (also known as ‘ad-supported’ software) which displays a large count of various advertisements. It can be pop-ups, text links in the pages, banners where they never had. What is more, the adware can replace the legitimate advertisements with malicious advertisements which will offer to download and install malicious software and unwanted apps or visit the various dangerous and misleading web-sites.
A malicious software which may impose certain undesired changes to settings of web-browsers on MP3 Search Engine mostly affects only MS Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, possible situations, when any other internet browsers will be affected too. The MP3 Search Engine hijacker infection can modify the Target property of web-browser’s shortcuts, so every time you open the web browser, instead of your startpage, you’ll see a completely different web-site.
The guide below explaining steps to remove MP3 Search Engine homepage problem. Feel free to use it for removal of the browser hijacker that may attack FF, IE, Edge and Google Chrome and other popular internet browsers. The steps will allow you restore your settings of installed browsers which previously replaced by browser hijacker infection.
Remove MP3 Search Engine (removal guidance)
The following step by step guide will help you to get rid of MP3 Search Engine from the Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, IE and Microsoft Edge. Moreover, the step-by-step guide below will help you to delete malware like PUPs, ‘ad supported’ software and toolbars that your PC system may be infected. Please do the instructions step by step. If you need assist or have any questions, then ask for our assistance or type a comment below. Read this manual carefully, bookmark or print it, because you may need to shut down your browser or reboot your PC system.
To remove MP3 Search Engine, complete the steps below:
- How to remove MP3 Search Engine start page without any software
- Removing the MP3 Search Engine, check the list of installed software first
- Get rid of MP3 Search Engine from IE
- Get rid of MP3 Search Engine from Google Chrome
- Remove MP3 Search Engine from Firefox by resetting internet browser settings
- Clean up the browsers shortcuts that have been affected by MP3 Search Engine
- How to remove MP3 Search Engine startpage with freeware
- Block MP3 Search Engine redirect and other intrusive web pages
- Method of MP3 Search Engine browser hijacker intrusion into your personal computer
- Finish words
How to remove MP3 Search Engine start page without any software
The useful removal instructions for the MP3 Search Engine. The detailed procedure can be followed by anyone as it really does take you step-by-step. If you follow this process to delete MP3 Search Engine startpage let us know how you managed by sending us your comments please.
Removing the MP3 Search Engine, check the list of installed software first
In order to delete MP3 Search Engine, first thing you need to do is to uninstall unknown and suspicious programs from your PC system using Windows control panel. When removing this browser hijacker, check the list of installed programs and try to find dubious programs and uninstall them all. Pay special attention to recently installed applications, as it’s most probably that the MP3 Search Engine browser hijacker infection сame along with it.
- If you are using Windows 8, 8.1 or 10 then click Windows button, next press Search. Type “Control panel”and press Enter.
- If you are using Windows XP, Vista, 7, then press “Start” button and press “Control Panel”.
- It will open the Windows Control Panel.
- Further, press “Uninstall a program” under Programs category.
- It will open a list of all programs installed on the personal computer.
- Scroll through the all list, and remove suspicious and unknown applications. To quickly find the latest installed applications, we recommend sort applications by date.
See more details in the video guide below.
Get rid of MP3 Search Engine from IE
In order to restore all web browser startpage, search provider by default and new tab you need to reset the IE to the state, that was when the Windows was installed on your system.
First, start the Internet Explorer, press ) button. Next, press “Internet Options” as on the image below.
In the “Internet Options” screen select the Advanced tab. Next, click Reset button. The IE will show the Reset Internet Explorer settings prompt. Select the “Delete personal settings” check box and click Reset button.
You will now need to restart your personal computer for the changes to take effect. It will delete hijacker responsible for redirecting your internet browser to MP3 Search Engine web-site, disable malicious and ad-supported internet browser’s extensions and restore the Internet Explorer’s settings such as start page, search engine and new tab to default state.
Get rid of MP3 Search Engine from Google Chrome
Reset Chrome settings is a simple way to remove the browser hijacker infection, malicious and ‘ad-supported’ extensions, as well as to recover the web-browser’s start page, default search provider and new tab that have been changed by MP3 Search Engine browser hijacker.
- First, start the Chrome and click the Menu icon (icon in the form of three dots).
- It will show the Google Chrome main menu. Choose More Tools, then click Extensions.
- You will see the list of installed plugins. If the list has the extension labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following guide: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
- Now open the Chrome menu once again, press the “Settings” menu.
- Next, press “Advanced” link, which located at the bottom of the Settings page.
- On the bottom of the “Advanced settings” page, click the “Reset settings to their original defaults” button.
- The Google Chrome will open the reset settings prompt as shown on the image above.
- Confirm the browser’s reset by clicking on the “Reset” button.
- To learn more, read the post How to reset Chrome settings to default.
Remove MP3 Search Engine from Firefox by resetting internet browser settings
If the Firefox settings like homepage, newtab page and search engine have been modified by the hijacker, then resetting it to the default state can help.
First, launch the Firefox and click button. It will show the drop-down menu on the right-part of the internet browser. Further, press the Help button () as shown on the screen below.
In the Help menu, select the “Troubleshooting Information” option. Another way to open the “Troubleshooting Information” screen – type “about:support” in the web-browser adress bar and press Enter. It will show the “Troubleshooting Information” page as shown below. In the upper-right corner of this screen, press the “Refresh Firefox” button.
It will show the confirmation prompt. Further, press the “Refresh Firefox” button. The Firefox will begin a process to fix your problems that caused by the hijacker responsible for modifying your web browser settings to MP3 Search Engine. Once, it’s complete, click the “Finish” button.
Clean up the browsers shortcuts that have been affected by MP3 Search Engine
The hijacker that changes web-browser settings to replace your search engine by default, newtab and start page with MP3 Search Engine site, can hijack various Windows shortcut files on your desktop (most often, all web browsers shortcut files), so in this step you need to check and clean them by removing the argument like http://site.address/.
Right click on the shortcut file of affected internet browser as displayed in the following example.
Select the “Properties” option and it’ll display the shortcut file’s properties. Next, click the “Shortcut” tab and then delete the “http://site.address” string from Target field like below.
Then click OK to save changes. Repeat the step for all browsers that are redirected to the MP3 Search Engine unwanted web-site.
How to remove MP3 Search Engine startpage with freeware
The easiest solution to delete MP3 Search Engine browser hijacker infection is to use an anti malware program capable of detecting hijacker infections including MP3 Search Engine. We recommend try Zemana Anti Malware (ZAM) or another free malware remover which listed below. It has excellent detection rate when it comes to adware, hijackers and other PUPs.
How to automatically delete MP3 Search Engine with Zemana Anti-Malware
We suggest using the Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM) that are completely clean your computer of the hijacker. The tool is an advanced malware removal application developed by (c) Zemana lab. It is able to help you remove PUPs, browser hijacker infections, adware, malware, toolbars, ransomware and other security threats from your computer for free.
- Visit the following page to download Zemana Free. Save it on your Desktop.
Zemana AntiMalware
162714 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
- After downloading is finished, close all applications and windows on your computer. Open a file location. Double-click on the icon that’s named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup.
- Further, click Next button and follow the prompts.
- Once installation is finished, press the “Scan” button to perform a system scan with this utility for the browser hijacker which developed to reroute your web browser to the MP3 Search Engine web page. This task may take some time, so please be patient.
- As the scanning ends, the results are displayed in the scan report. All found items will be marked. You can remove them all by simply click “Next”. When disinfection is finished, you can be prompted to restart your computer.
Scan and free your computer of hijacker with Malwarebytes
Manual MP3 Search Engine removal requires some computer skills. Some files and registry entries that created by the hijacker infection can be not completely removed. We suggest that use the Malwarebytes Free that are completely clean your system of browser hijacker infection. Moreover, the free program will allow you to get rid of malware, potentially unwanted programs, adware and toolbars that your PC may be infected too.
- Download MalwareBytes on your MS Windows Desktop by clicking on the link below.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
324340 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
- At the download page, click on the Download button. Your browser will show the “Save as” dialog box. Please save it onto your Windows desktop.
- After the downloading process is complete, please close all apps and open windows on your computer. Double-click on the icon that’s named mb3-setup.
- This will run the “Setup wizard” of MalwareBytes Anti-Malware onto your machine. Follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.
- When the Setup wizard has finished installing, the MalwareBytes Free will open and show the main window.
- Further, click the “Scan Now” button . MalwareBytes Anti-Malware utility will begin scanning the whole computer to find out hijacker responsible for changing your browser settings to MP3 Search Engine. A scan can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of files on your system and the speed of your PC. While the tool is scanning, you can see number of objects and files has already scanned.
- After the scan is done, MalwareBytes Free will show a list of all threats detected by the scan.
- Next, you need to click the “Quarantine Selected” button. When finished, you may be prompted to reboot the PC.
- Close the Anti Malware and continue with the next step.
Video instruction, which reveals in detail the steps above.
Scan and free your machine of hijacker infection with AdwCleaner
AdwCleaner is a free program which designed to get rid of malicious software, PUPs, adware and hijackers from your PC running Microsoft Windows 10, 8, 7, XP (32-bit and 64-bit). It will help to identify and remove hijacker infection that cause MP3 Search Engine web page to appear, including its files, folders and registry keys.
Visit the page linked below to download the latest version of AdwCleaner for Windows. Save it to your Desktop.
224047 downloads
Version: 8.3.2
Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 28, 2022
After the downloading process is finished, open the file location. You will see an icon like below.
Double click the AdwCleaner desktop icon. When the utility is opened, you will see a screen as on the image below.
Further, click “Scan” button to perform a system scan with this utility for the browser hijacker responsible for redirecting user searches to MP3 Search Engine. A scan may take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of files on your personal computer and the speed of your computer. When the scan get finished, AdwCleaner will show a list of detected threats as displayed in the following example.
Next, you need to press “Clean” button. It will display a dialog box like below.
You need to click “OK”. When the process is done, the AdwCleaner may ask you to restart your machine. When your computer is started, you will see an AdwCleaner log.
These steps are shown in detail in the following video guide.
Block MP3 Search Engine redirect and other intrusive web pages
If you browse the Web, you can’t avoid malvertising. But you can protect your internet browser against it. Download and run an adblocker program. AdGuard is an ad-blocking which can filter out lots of of the malicious advertising, stoping dynamic scripts from loading malicious content.
- Click the link below to download the latest version of AdGuard for Microsoft Windows. Save it to your Desktop so that you can access the file easily.
Adguard download
26322 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
- When the downloading process is finished, start the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” program window. Follow the prompts.
- After the install is finished, click “Skip” to close the install program and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial that will allow you get to know AdGuard better.
- In most cases, the default settings are enough and you do not need to change anything. Each time, when you start your system, AdGuard will launch automatically and stop popup ads, MP3 Search Engine redirect, as well as other harmful or misleading pages. For an overview of all the features of the application, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the icon called AdGuard, which may be found on your desktop.
Method of MP3 Search Engine browser hijacker intrusion into your personal computer
Many browser hijackers such as MP3 Search Engine are included in the freeware installation package. Most often, a user have a chance to disable all included “offers”, but some installers are created to confuse the average users, in order to trick them into installing an ad-supported software or potentially unwanted software. Anyway, easier to prevent the browser hijacker rather than clean up your system after one. So, keep the web-browser updated (turn on automatic updates), use a good antivirus apps, double check a free programs before you run it (do a google search, scan a downloaded file with VirusTotal), avoid malicious and unknown web sites.
Finish words
Now your personal computer should be free of the hijacker infection that causes web browsers to open unwanted MP3 Search Engine site. Remove AdwCleaner. We suggest that you keep Zemana (to periodically scan your machine for new browser hijackers and other malware) and AdGuard (to help you stop undesired ads and harmful web-sites). Moreover, to prevent browser hijackers, please stay clear of unknown and third party apps, make sure that your antivirus program, turn on the option to search for PUPs.
If you need more help with MP3 Search Engine homepage related issues, go to our Spyware/Malware removal forum.