Searchbent.com Removal Guide

Searchbent.com is a newly emerged questionable search engine in a new family that also includes Currentexplore.com and Detailexplore.com, which are identical clones indeed. The main common feature of these search engines apart from their obvious similarity is that they do not seem to work as yet. This however does not mean that this search engine could not pose a threat to your computer in the near future. This is not the first time that we have seen a search engine that does not actually do any search. But knowing that the authors of such infections can only make money if they promote third parties through manipulated search results, there is a good chance that this search engine or the whole family will start working some time soon. In any case, we do not think it is a good idea to keep this search engine in your browsers as you may not even know how it showed up there in the first place. We suggest that you read our full article to know more about this infection, the potential risks, and, most importantly, how you can remove Searchbent.com from your browsers.

For this annoying search engine to end up in your major browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome, as your new home page, it is most likely that you have downloaded and installed a malicious freeware bundle. This can mainly happen when you click on unreliable third-party content, such as pop-up and banner ads as well as corrupted links. There are two main scenarios for you to encounter such traps. First, an adware program or a browser hijacker may have previously invaded your system. These infections are capable of displaying unsafe third-party ads and links. This is exactly why you should not keep any uninvited search engines in your browsers as well because they can expose you to such content through modified search results.

Second, you may end up on suspicious websites, let us say, after a web search for specific free software. The main sites that could mean danger are definitely related to file sharing, gaming, gambling, and pornography. Engaging with any content on these manipulative and misleading pages could easily lead to your downloading a full bundle of adware programs, browser hijackers, fake alerts, Trojans, and potentially unwanted applications as well. This is why we suggest that you delete Searchbent.com right away and detect all other possibly harmful programs as well. In order to do that, you may want to use a reliable online tool, such as a malware scanner.

This search engine offers you a look unlike other usual search engines. In fact, most browser hijackers and suspicious search engines try to resemble one of the most popular legitimate search engines, such as Google. Furthermore, these infections usually use a third-party service, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing, to display your search results, which may contain unreliable third-party advertisements and sponsored links. If you happen to click on such content, you could drop malicious threats onto your computer or end up on a malicious websites and get scammed by cyber criminals. As we have already mentioned, this search engine does not show you results yet. Instead of redirecting you to a manipulated search results page, you simply find yourself on an error page that informs you that unfortunately no match was found even if you try to search the most general expression, such as "shopping." But once this search engine is activated, it may also start gathering information about you based on your browsing history and other technologies. This can be exploited by cyber criminals to try to trick you with customized advertisements. All in all, we believe that you should delete Searchbent.com as soon as possible if you do not want to wait till the moment when it all gets out of your hands.

In order to eliminate this potential threat source, all you need to do is that you change the home page setting in your affected browsers. If you want to try to do this manually, please use our instructions below to make sure that no leftovers remain. You can become a more cautious web surfer to try to ward off malicious attacks but if you would like to enjoy peace of mind while going online, we suggest that you download and install a proper anti-malware application. Such a security tool can automatically detect and erase all existing malware infections.

How to remove Searchbent.com from your browsers

Google Chrome

1. Tap Win+E to launch File Explorer.
2. Locate "C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default" folder.
3. Delete Preferences, Secure Preferences and Web Data files.

Mozilla Firefox

1. Tap Win+E.
2. Locate "C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{Unique Mozilla ID}" folder.
3. Open prefs.js in Notepad.
4. Overwrite "http://searchbent.com" in the "user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", http://searchbent.com")" string with any URL you want as your home page.

Internet Explorer

1. Tap Win+R and type regedit. Press OK.
2. Locate the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page" registry value name.
3. Right-click it and choose Modify to change the URL.
4. Click OK and exit the Registry Editor.