How to remove My Social Shortcut

What is My Social Shortcut

Developed by MyWay, My Social Shortcut is a potentially unwanted program that is ostensibly meant to improve browsing by altering certain settings. The software of this type is usually categorized as browser hijackers and may come in both software and extension formats. It proliferates users without permission and runs a couple of changes after penetration. To illustrate, the program appends a new search engine (hp.myway.com) and changes the overall interface. If you think that My Social Shortcut is useful and will not damage your privacy, then you are totally wrong! My Social Shortcut has data-tracking capabilities. This means that modifying certain settings allows extortionists to spy on your activity and collect sensitive data. Besides that, My Social Shortcut may require access to your social media to display quick shortcuts on the homepage. Once allowed, swindlers can easily gather your personal details and sell them to cybercriminals. Thus, this rogue application has to be removed from your PC to prevent unintentional data leaks and identity threat.

How My Social Shortcut infected your computer

Quite frankly, there is a bunch of methods that cybercriminals use to spread their software. Traditionally, the most popular one has been bundling which is a technique of injecting third-parties programs alongside repacks. Unfortunately, whilst running a set-up, users forget to untick additional offers that are involved in “Advanced” or “Custom” options. After doing so, extortionists reach their logical goal – to infiltrate gullible users. This is why it is highly important to avoid clicking on deceptive advertisements or websites that host untrustworthy downloads. To evade cyberattacks, you should use contemporary anti-malware software like Kaspersky Total Security. It has a variety of features that reduce the risk of getting infected on the web significantly. If your browser experienced sudden changes, then you might be infected with a browser hijacker. To remove it, please follow the steps guided below.

Remove My Social Shortcut manually for free

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

Note: My Social Shortcut 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 My Social Shortcut from Control Panel

To start removing My Social Shortcut you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names – for example, “My Social Shortcut”, “MySocialShortcut” or “MySocialShortcut Internet Explorer Homepage and New Tab”. 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 and Windows 8.

Remove My Social Shortcut from Mac:

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

Remove My Social Shortcut from Windows XP:

1. Click on Start button.
2. Choose Control Panel.
3. Click Add or Remove Programs.
4. Find MySocialShortcut Internet Explorer Homepage and New Tab.
5. Click Uninstall.

Remove My Social Shortcut from Windows 7:

1. Click Start button.
2. Then go to Control Panel.
3. Click Uninstall a Program.
4. Find MySocialShortcut Internet Explorer Homepage and New Tab and click Uninstall.

Remove My Social Shortcut 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 MySocialShortcut Internet Explorer Homepage and New Tab, click Uninstall.

Remove My Social Shortcut from Windows 10:

There are 2 ways to uninstall My Social Shortcut 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 MySocialShortcut Internet Explorer Homepage and New Tab 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 MySocialShortcut Internet Explorer Homepage and New Tab in the list.
4. Click on it and then click Uninstall button above.

Cannot uninstall My Social Shortcut

In some cases, My Social Shortcut won’t uninstall and gives you the message, that “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall My Social Shortcut. Please, contact your system administrator” when you try to remove it from Control Panel or “Access denied” error when removing the My Social Shortcut 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 My Social Shortcut 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 MySocialShortcut Internet Explorer Homepage and New Tab

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

and for Mac:

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

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

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

Uninstalling My Social Shortcut from Control Panel often does not bring the desired effect. It sometimes has browser extension and it may still be active in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Here are instructions on how to remove My Social Shortcut extension 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 MySocialShortcut 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 MySocialShortcut add-on.
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 MySocialShortcut extension.
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 My Social Shortcut from Internet Explorer, please, perform instructions for uninstalling a program from Control Panel. To disable My Social Shortcut, 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 MySocialShortcut.
6. Also disable other suspicious extensions from the list.

Opera Browser:

Generally, My Social Shortcut 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 MySocialShortcut extension.
4. Click Uninstall button.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

My Social Shortcut installs a search engine (search.hfastpackagetracker.net), that hijacks your browsers. Here is an 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.

Remove following files, folders and registry keys of My Social Shortcut

My Social Shortcut files:

_d1Membersttab03_@free.mysocialshortcut.com.xpi
ul.js
urlFragmentActions.js
urlUtils.js
util.js
watchExtensionsHandler.js
webtooltabAPI.js
webTooltabAPIProxy.js

My Social Shortcut folders:

C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\ognogdhldnmmaggmfoahbdnagnbhhlmj

My Social Shortcut registry keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MySocialShortcut
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MySocialShortcutTooltab Uninstall Internet ExplorerHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MySocialShortcutTooltab Uninstall Internet Explorer


How to block redirects and pop-ups from My Social Shortcut

AdGuard main window

AdGuard general settings

AdGuard browser assistant

My Social Shortcut redirects, in most cases, are caused by a program installed on your PC or add-on installed in browsers. However, sometimes it can appear on a clean computer when visiting malicious websites, using an advertising script. Also, apps that generate “My Social Shortcut” are themselves installed from pop-ups. To protect your PC and browsers from phishing websites, pop-up ads, banners, malicious scripts it is recommended to use AdGuard. Download free trial here:

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 ratings including related to My Social Shortcut. You can also reset your browser settings for each of your browsers: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox.

Cleaning browsers shortcuts

You can clean your browser shortcuts manually right-clicking on your browser icon, choosing “Properties” and removing hijacker address from “Target” field (leave just the path to your browser). However it is easier to use free Shortcut Cleaner from BleepingComputer. Download it here – its FREE:

Final tips

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs like My Social Shortcut may become a real headache as they are hard to remove and break your privacy. To keep safe from such threats we recommend you always use antivirus and one of the anti-malware programs available on the market. One of the best anti-spyware and anti-malware programs is SpyHunter 5. It can protect your PC from threats, like My Social Shortcut.