Do you know what Zeta-search.com is?
Browser hijackers are malicious search engines that pose as legitimate. Zeta-search.com is the perfect example because it is presented as a revolutionary search engine while, in fact, it does nothing to improve your search experience. We highly recommend that you remove it from your browser because it is set to replace its homepage address. The reason it is set to do that is simple; its developers make money from online promotions, and Zeta-search.com is just one of many infections that generate advertising revenue. Furthermore, this hijacker is set to gather personally and non-personally identifiable information about you and your browsing habits to make more money. For an in-depth look at this hijacker, we invite you to read this whole article.
We will begin our analysis with this hijacker’s dissemination methods. Our malware analysts have discovered that Zeta-search.com has created by a company called Babylon Ltd. This questionable company is well known to us because our security experts have analyzed many of its older releases. They say that it is nearly identical to Super-page.com, Pico-search.com, and Bit-search.com. Our researchers believe that it is distributed in software bundled and insert it into the browser without asking you for permission. In other words, it infects your computer secretly, so that is the main reason why we have classified it as a browser hijacker. The software it comes bundled with is probably featured on freeware distributing websites, and it is the bundle installer that interacts with the browser and injects this hijacker into it.
Testing has shown that this browser hijacker is set to hijack the homepage of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome. By hijacking the homepage address, this malicious search engine forces unwary users to use it for processing search queries. Our researchers say that in some cases, this browser hijacker can present modified search results that contain links to promoted websites. We want to stress that these promotional links may be of unreliable nature and subject you to malicious content. Indeed, this browser hijacker can compromise your computer’s security, so you should not use it. We would like to add that it redirects the search queries to Google.com which goes to show that, no matter how you look at it, this search engine has nothing to offer.
Zeta-search.com screenshot
Scroll down for full removal instructions
Another important issue that needs to be addressed is Zeta-search.com's Privacy Policy. According to its privacy policy, this hijacker is set to collect information such as “internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser user agent, referring page, date/time stamp and cookies and web beacons automatically.” This information is used to analyze trends, track your movements around the site and gather demographic information to determine the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. This information allows the developers to make changes and improve their advertising tactics and make more money. Regarding personally identifiable information, the privacy policy says that “a cookie does not allow us to obtain any personally identifiable information (such as your real name or address) unless you have specifically provided such information when using the Web Sites or the Software.” A cookie is a small text file used for storing information and user preferences. However, as you can see, this hijacker will monitor and obtain any personal information you disclose while using the site. Therefore, it is important that you delete it to restore your personal online security.
In conclusion, Zeta-search.com is a fictitious search engine whose primary purpose is to generate advertising revenue. However, our security analysts have found that some of its advertisements can come from unreliable sources and compromise your computer’s security and show you links to scam websites. Also, its privacy policy is clear about the information it collects to improve the advertising campaign and it is unacceptable that it can store personal information when you specify it because you probably were not aware of this fact. So please follow the instructions below on how to remove this hijacker.
Delete this hijacker’s files
- Press Windows+E keys.
- Enter the following locations into the address box.
- Delete the zeta-search.com folder.
- %APPDATA%
- %PROGRAMFILES%
- %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%
Remove it from the browser
Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Press Windows+R keys.
- Enter regedit in the box and click OK.
- Navigate to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
- Find Start Page and right-click it.
- Click Modify.
- Enter a new URL in the Value data line.
Google Chrome
- Press Windows+E keys.
- Go to %LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
- Find and Delete Preferences, Secure Preferences and Web Data files.
Mozilla Firefox
- Press Windows+E keys.
- Go to %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{ID number}
- Find and open prefs.js with Notepad.
- Replace user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", " http://zeta-search.com"); with your desired homepage address.
In non-techie terms:
Zeta-search.comis a fake search whose developers distribute it in a manner that involves hijacking your web browser’s homepage. Therefore, we have classified it as a browser hijacker. Furthermore, it is set to feature additional promotional links in its search results, and research has shown that some of them can compromise your computer’s security. This hijacker can show you links to scam websites, so we recommend that you remove it using the guide above or SpyHunter, our featured antimalware tool.