How to remove Firesear.ch

What is Firesear.ch

Firesear.ch is an unwanted program categorized as a browser hijacker. The most obvious trait of it running on your PC is the assignment of Firesear.ch instead of your default search engine. In other words, once you enter a word in the search bar, the query will be redirected through Firesear.ch and other suspicious engines. Such changes are usually made to generate illegal traffic for revenue purposes. The appearance of the infected browser looks almost identical to the original one. The only thing that changed is new icons allowing to access popular platforms (e.g. Amazon, Facebook, etc.). Also, you may spot the “Managed by your organization” text line in the browser menu, which is displayed in case your browser is accessed by third-party organizations. All of these changes entail no good purpose as browser hijackers can track your personal data and sell it to cybercriminals. To prevent this, we recommend you get rid of Firesear.ch as soon as possible. Our guide below will show precise steps to do so.

How Firesear.ch infected your computer

Since browser hijackers are part of Potentially Unwanted Software, their distribution is vividly-seen in third-party repacks. This category includes pirated/cracked or free software advertised on suspicious pages. Owners of such resources are usually paid for injecting additional offers inside of the programs. Then, once users download the desired program, they run through the setup full of additional settings. After missing the “Advanced/Custom” sections and hitting the “Install” button, they instantly doom themselves for the installation of unwanted software. Sometimes unwanted software can be spread via ad-pages that contain executable scripts for background infections. Whatever the case, you should be careful interacting and downloading unofficial content from the web. Below, you will find a set of tools meant to protect your PC against such threats in the future.

Remove Firesear.ch manually for free

Here is a manual step-by-step tutorial for full Firesear.ch removal from your computer. This works 99% and was checked with the latest versions of the Firesear.ch installer on operating systems with the latest updates and browser versions.

Note: Firesear.ch can be installed as Google Chrome extension as Administrator (you may see Installed by enterprise policy inscription near it), and this will not allow removal. Therefore, before starting removal process, perform these actions:

1. Start the Command Prompt by clicking the Start menu button and typing command prompt (or just searching for “command prompt” in Windows 10 search field). Right click on the Command Prompt result and choose Run as Administrator.



2. Type in and execute the following commands:

   
rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers"
rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy"
gpupdate /force

Remove Firesear.ch from Control Panel

To start removing Firesear.ch you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names, but usually “Firesearch”. It should uninstall correctly, however, we recommend you to use IObit Uninstaller to clean leftover items after uninstalling. Here are instructions for Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 or Mac.

Remove Firesear.ch from Mac:

1. In the Finder sidebar, click Applications.
2. Firesearch might have an Uninstaller.
3. Otherwise, drag Firesearch from the Applications folder to the Trash (located at the end of the Dock).
4. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash.

Remove Firesear.ch from Windows XP:

1. Click on Start button.
2. Choose Control Panel.
3. Click Add or Remove Programs.
4. Find Firesearch or other suspicious program.
5. Click Uninstall.

Remove Firesear.ch from Windows 7:

1. Click Start button.
2. Then go to Control Panel.
3. Click Uninstall a Program.
4. Find Firesearch or other suspicious program and click Uninstall.

Remove Firesear.ch from Windows 8:

1. Hover mouse pointer to the bottom-right corner to see Menu.
2. Click Search.
3. After that click Apps.
4. Then Control Panel.
5. Click Uninstall a Program under Programs.
6. Find Firesearch or other suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove Firesear.ch from Windows 10:

There are 2 ways to uninstall Firesear.ch from Windows 10

Way one

1. Click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Settings.
3. Click on the System tile.
4. Click Apps & features and locate Firesearch or other suspicious program in the list.
5. Click on it and then click Uninstall button near it.

Way two (classic)

1. Right-click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Programs and Features.
3. Locate Firesearch or other suspicious program in the list.
4. Click on it and then click Uninstall button above.

Cannot uninstall Firesear.ch

In some cases, Firesear.ch won’t uninstall and gives you the message, that “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Firesear.ch. Please, contact your system administrator” when you try to remove it from Control Panel or “Access denied” error when removing the Firesear.ch folder and files. This happens because the process or service does not allow you to do it. In this case, I will recommend you to use SpyHunter 5 or Malwarebytes or uninstall Firesear.ch in Safe Mode. To boot in Safe Mode do the following:

1. Reboot your computer.
2. While it starts booting press F8 button.
3. This will open Advanced Boot Options menu.
4. Choose Safe Mode and wait until Windows loads.
5. Go to Control Panel > Uninstall a program and remove Firesearch or other suspicious program

>> See detailed instructions and video tutorial on how to boot in Safe Mode

and for Mac:

If you can’t uninstall Firesear.ch using instructions above, or it keeps coming back, you can use free AppCleaner for Mac to remove all residual data and libraries of Firesear.ch. Follow instructions below:

1. Download free AppCleaner.
2. Drag Firesearch from Applications folder to AppCleaner window.
3. Choose files and folders you want to remove along with Firesearch.
4. Click Delete button.

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

Uninstalling Firesear.ch from Control Panel often does not bring the desired effect. It sometimes has browser extensions and it may still be active in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Here are instructions on how to remove Firesear.ch related extensions from your browsers manually.

Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Click Extensions tab.
3. Find Firesearch extension.
4. Click Uninstall button to remove it.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://extensions.
3. Find Firesearch or other suspicious extensions.
4. Click the trash can icon to remove them.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:addons.
3. Choose Firesearch or other suspicious extensions.
4. Click Disable or Remove button.
5. Remove all suspicious extensions from the list.

Internet Explorer (9, 10, 11):

Note: There is no feature to remove browser extensions from browser in latest version of Internet Explorer. To remove Firesear.ch from Internet Explorer, please, perform instructions for uninstalling program from Control Panel. To disable Firesear.ch, please, do the following:

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click on gear/asterisk icon in the top-right corner.
3. In opened menu Manage Add-ons.
4. Select Toolbars and Extensions.
5. Click Disable Firesearch or other suspicious extensions.
6. Also disable other suspicious extensions from the list.

Opera Browser:

Generally, Firesear.ch does not install in Opera browser however you can always double check. Do the following:

1. Start Opera browser.
2. Go to Tools > Extensions > Manage Extensions.
3. Find Firesearch or other suspicious extensions.
4. Click Uninstall button.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Firesear.ch installs a search engine that hijacks your browsers. Here is the instruction to reset your browser’s homepage, new tab, and search engine to default values.

Reset Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Go to the Privacy section of Safari’s preferences.
3. Click Remove All Website Data button.
4. In opened window click Remove Now button to remove data stored by websites in Safari.
5. Go to the Advanced section of Safari’s preferences.
6. Click the Show Develop menu in menu bar option.
7. In the menu click Develop and select Empty Caches from this menu.
8. Again, go to Safari menu and choose Clear History….
9. Choose to clear all history and click Clear History button.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://settings.
3. Scroll down and find Show advanced settings link.
4. Click on it and scroll down to the bottom again.
5. Click Reset browser settings button and click Reset to confirm.

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:support.
3. Click Reset Firefox… button.
4. Click Reset Firefox to confirm.

Internet Explorer (9, 10, 11):

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. Click on gear/asterisk icon in the top-right corner.
3. In opened menu choose Internet options.
4. Click Advanced tab.
5. Click Reset button.
6. Choose Delete personal settings and click Reset.

Opera Browser:

1. Close Opera and open command prompt from the start menu.
2. Type following command del %AppData%\Opera\Opera\operaprefs.ini
3. Start Opera.

Alternative way to remove adware browser extensions and reset browser settings

For safe and effective browser extension removal use avast! Browser Cleanup utility. Run it with administrator privileges and remove all extensions with bad rating including related to Firesear.ch. You can also reset your browser settings for each of your browsers: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox.