Search.searchlivesp.com Removal Guide

Search.searchlivesp.com could seem to be attractive to you if you were a big sports fan and to find that this search engine page has related features, i.e., streaming sports content as well as news. But we have bad news for you. We have found that this is just another browser hijacker from the notorious family that includes dozens of similar and identical malware threats, such as Search.yourclassifiedscenter.com and Search.searchliveson.com to name a few. The most likely way for this infection to appear on your system unnoticed is to install it via questionable methods. This also means that this browser hijacker may not be the only threat on board right now. This hijacker may not be the biggest malware threat you can be hit with, but it can put your virtual security at risk by showing you potentially harmful third-party content. Therefore, we suggest that you remove Search.searchlivesp.com from your browsers and take care of the rest of the malware infections as well if you want to do the right thing.

The truth is that most users do not even realize that a browser hijacker has sneaked onto their system. But in this case it could be different since this search engine has characteristic features, such as the fake toolbar at the top of the page and the big Search logo above the main search box. In other words, you are more likely to spot this one than the ones that resemble well-known search engines like Google. As a matter of fact, a lot of times it is even possible to nip it in the bud and notice the browser setting changes beforehand, when revealed by the bundles they are spread in. This is why we suggest that you be cautious every time you are installing software packages even if they seem to be authentic and legitimate. In fact, you can never know what additional changes and tools a bundle contains until you start installing it. You may need to choose the custom or advanced option though if it is offered because otherwise a suspicious installer may not reveal its true and full content.

It is possible to be infected with such a bundle when you download free software, music files, and movies from questionable file-sharing websites, such as torrent and shareware sites. These are mostly responsible for hosting malicious third-party installers packing a number of malware infections that usually include browser hijackers, Trojans, fake alerts, keyloggers, ad-supported programs as well as potentially unwanted programs. Another possibility is that you click on unreliable third-party contents, such as ads, fake buttons, fake notifications, and links. This can also take place on a suspicious website that hosts lots of questionable third-party ads but not necessarily limited to sites associated with file sharing. You can find unsafe ads, for example, on online gaming, gambling, and pornographic pages as well. Yet another way for you to be exposed to unreliable ads is to have an adware infection on board. All in all, as you can see now, there is little chance that this browser hijacker is your only worry. Thus, we recommend that after you delete Search.searchlivesp.com from your browsers, you also run a malware scanner on your system to see how heavily it is loaded with malware infections.

This hijacker may appear to be a useful addition to your browsers if you are a great sports fan as it provides you with a fake toolbar with sports-related quick-links, including live streaming sites (espn.com), sports news, and local weather. In fact, the weather widget needs to be highlighted because that page contains a number of annoying and potentially harmful third-party ads as well. This hijacker might also have the capability to inject questionable third-party content into promoted legitimate pages and thus make them risky to visit and engage with. Yet, the most problematic part is indeed the search engine, the main feature.

Unfortunately, you cannot trust any content this search page has to offer, including the search results. This browser hijacker redirects all your queries to a Yahoo search results page that may be modified to include questionable affiliate content, such as ads and links. Clearly, this is the only way this search engine can make money for its creators. However, crooks can take advantage of the low level security of such a search engine and inject their own ads and links. This would mean that the results page could be risky to engage with since you could click on corrupt content that may take you to fake websites run by cyber criminals or download malicious installers and infect your computer with more serious threats. If you want to restore order on your machine, we advise you to start by removing Search.searchlivesp.com.

It seems that this browser hijacker mostly affects your home page settings, which means that it should be enough for you to modify those settings in your infected browsers. If you have never done this before, please use our instructions that you can find below. But even if you eliminate this threat, your system could still be endangered by other malware infections. You can try to detect and identify them all manually but we doubt you could do a perfect job at that unless you are an IT expert. Thus, we suggest that you download and install a malware removal program so that you can automatically erase all threats at the click of a button and protect your PC from future attacks.

Remove Search.searchlivesp.com from browsers

Mozilla Firefox

1. Tap Win+E.
2. Access the “%AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{Unique Mozilla user ID}” folder.
3. Open the prefs.js file in a text editor (e.g., Notepad).
4. Change the user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://search.searchlivesp.com/") string with a home page URL address that you can trust.

Internet Explorer

1. Tap Win+R and enter regedit. Click OK.
2. Overwrite the value data of “http://search.searchlivesp.com” with a URL you can trust in these registry keys:
   HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page (64-bit)
   HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page
   HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page
3. Close your Registry Editor.

Google Chrome

1. Tap Win+E.
2. Access the “%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default” folder.
3. Delete these files: Preferences, Secure Preferences, and Web Data
4. Empty your Recycle Bin.