Searchitdown.com Removal Guide

Do you know what Searchitdown.com is?

Searchitdown.com might seem like a harmless search engine, but its usage can result in redirection to potentially harmful web pages. That is possible because the application could display modified search results. To be more precise, it may use another search engine to gather most of the results, but inject them with third-party advertising before they are displayed. Consequently, users may notice suspicious ads promoting third-party content. Of course, we cannot say that all of this content could be dangerous, but some of it might be. The question is if you are willing to take such chances for an application you can easily replace? If you are not, do not hesitate to use the removal guide below and eliminate the threat. However, if you cannot decide yet, we advise you to continue reading the article as there are more important details to learn.

Searchitdown.com works in a particular manner that allows it to classify as a browser hijacker. In order to make you use the search engine, the application hijacks the browser and changes your default homepage preferences. To make matters worse, it might be difficult to go back to your previous settings. It looks like the program can make changes to particular browser data, although users can undo them manually while modifying specific files.

For example, if you want to erase Searchitdown.com from Internet Explorer manually, you have to access the Windows Registry. There is value name called Start Page in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main directory. Its value data sets the homepage for the mentioned browser and in this case, it should contain http://Searchitdown.com link. This might sound rather complicated, but if you check the deletion guide below, it should look less difficult.Searchitdown.com Removal GuideSearchitdown.com screenshot
Scroll down for full removal instructions

As the search engine becomes your start page and you begin using it, the application may record some information related to the way you browse. Its Privacy Policy says that it could gather information related to the user’s visited web pages, clicked ads, search queries, and other. Later this data could be analyzed and used to create tempting ads. Sadly, Searchitdown.com creators can promote third-party content, but they might not necessarily review it. Therefore, some of the ads might come from malicious web pages, e.g. sites that offer adware, potentially unwanted programs, or malware.

Moreover, some of the third-party websites could try to gather your sensitive or private data. To provide you with an example, a website could offer various freebies in exchange for your telephone number, email address, name, location, and so on. If you ever encounter such sites, before submitting personal data, try to find out how the website’s creators are going to use it. Even the hijacker’s Privacy Policy states that they do not take any responsibility for third-party content and recommend learning more about their sites, products and terms of use before submitting personal data, downloading software, and so on.

Because of potentially harmful ads, Searchitdown.com cannot be considered as a reliable search engine. Needless to say that our advice to you would be to get rid of the browser hijacker as soon as possible. We doubt that you would like to use an application, which could promote dangerous content. Thus, to avoid any risks, follow the removal guide and learn how to delete the threat manually. The instructions will tell how to undo changes done to the files belonging for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. As for the Google Chrome, we suggest erasing such data as modifying them could be too complicated. What’s more, users could also eliminate the hijacker with a trustworthy security tool. Just acquire the tool, run a system scan and click the removal button.

Eliminate Searchitdown.com

Internet Explorer

  1. Press Win+R, type Regedit in the given box and press OK.
  2. Find a value name called Start Page in this particular path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
  3. Right-click the Start Page, select Modify and press OK after you delete given value data.
  4. Close the Registry Editor.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Access the Explorer and find a file called prefs.js in the following directory C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{Unique Mozilla user ID}
  2. Open the prefs.js file with Notepad.
  3. Find and erase this specific code line user_pref(“browser.startup.homepage”, “Searchitdown.com”).
  4. Press Ctrl+S and close it.

Google Chrome

  1. Launch the Explorer.
  2. Look for files called Preferences, Secure Preferences, and Web Data in the given path C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
  3. Right-click the listed files separately and press Delete.

In non-techie terms:

Searchitdown.com is a suspicious search engine that might have hijacked your browser while clicking malicious pop-up advertisements. Out researchers advise against its usage because it may show annoying and also possibly malicious third-party ads. If your goal is to keep the system secure and malware-free, you should delete it from the computer. To make it easier for our readers, we placed a removal guide above this text. However, users who want to clean the system or are inexperienced in such matters should consider using a reliable security tool. It is easy to use and allows to erase multiple threats at the same time.