How to remove Search Maven ads

What is Search Maven

Search Maven is an adware-type program that enhances online-shopping by adding various features. The application employs algorithms to display exclusive offers, coupons, and other content based on users’ shopping habits. On the first hand, the program is absolutely legitimate and indeed improves your browsing experience by generating better and cheaper deals from other shops compared to rivals. Of course, it can save a lot of time searching for the same products on multiple platforms in favor of a more satisfying price. Basically, It collects the deals and combines them into a structured window. Despite all of this useful functionality, Search Maven can promote dubious ads that redirect users to questionable or malicious domains. These manipulations can push inadvertent infections and put your data under risk of getting hijacked by cybercriminals. This is why we advise removing Search Maven from your computer to prevent data loss.

How Search Maven infected your computer

Search Maven is promoted on the official website, however, Potentially Unwanted Applications like adware are often spread via download clients that can be installed from websites that host freeware. Such domains are getting paid by third-parties to integrate their software alongside the desired program. When installing, check if additional options like “Advanced” or “Custom” exist. If yes, then more likely developers attempt to stealthily infiltrate their software for tracking purposes. Do not rush through the installation, instead, take a deep breath and spend some time on unticking extra programs that are bundled within the kit. This will ensure that you will not be infected with adware or browser hijackers that alter browser settings for displaying low-quality content. Search Maven can be considered useful in some way, however, its shady activity prompts users to experience data risks and therefore needs to be uninstalled from your computer.

1. Download Search Maven Removal Tool
2. Stop Search Maven notifications in browsers
3. Remove/Uninstall Search Maven from Control Panel and Applications
4. Remove Search Maven extensions from browsers
5. Reset browser search and homepage settings
6. Block Search Maven search redirects
7. How to protect from threats like Search Maven

Remove Search Maven manually for free

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

Disable push notifications from Search Maven in browsers

Remove Search Maven from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Google Chrome

1. Go to Google Chrome settings, by clicking 3-dots icon in the top-right corner and choosing Settings.
2. On a Mac you can also go to Chrome and choose Preferences.
3. Under opened Privacy and security tab, choose Content settings.
4. Click on Notifications menu (with the bell icon).
5. Set up preferred overall settings for push notifications and click Manage exceptions… button.
6. Find Search Maven in the list and click cross icon to remove it. Click Done button to confirm the action.

Remove Search Maven from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Mozilla Firefox

1. Go to Mozilla Firefox options, by clicking 3-bars icon in the top-right corner and choosing Options.
2. Choose Content tab on the left side.
3. Under Notifications, set up preferred overall settings for push-notifications and click Choose… button.
4. Find Search Maven in the list and click Remove site to remove it.
5. Click Save Changes button to confirm the action.

Remove Search Maven from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Safari

1. Open Safari, and in the top menu click Safari, choose Preferences.
2. In the Preferences window, click on Websites tab.
3. On the left side, choose Notifications. You will see the list of websites and their settings for showing notifications.
4. Find Search Maven in the list and click Remove button.

Remove Search Maven from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Android (Chrome)

1. Open Google Chrome app on Android, and tap on three dots to open main menu.
2. In the drop-down menu choose Settings, scroll down and under Advanced section tap on Site Settings.
3. In the Site Settings menu tap on Notifications.
4. In the Allowed list of websites allowed to show notifications find Search Maven, tap on it and in the bottom of the window tap on Clean & Reset button.
5. Confirm your action by tapping on Clean & Reset again in opened dialog box.

Remove Search Maven from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Microsoft Edge

1. Open Microsoft Edge, and click on the three-dots menu, in the top-right corner.
2. In the drop-down menu choose Settings, and in the left part click Advanced.
3. Under Website permissions section, click Manage permissions button.
4. Find Search Maven in the list and click on the cross sign to remove the setting and disable its notifications.

Remove Search Maven from Control Panel or Applications

To start removing Search Maven you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names – “Search Maven”. 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 and Mac.

Remove Search Maven from Mac:

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

Remove Search Maven from Windows XP:

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

Remove Search Maven from Windows 7:

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

Remove Search Maven 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 recently installed suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove Search Maven from Windows 10:

There are 2 ways to uninstall Search Maven 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 recently installed 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 recently installed suspicious program in the list.
4. Click on it and then click Uninstall button above.

Cannot uninstall Search Maven

In some cases, Search Maven won’t uninstall and gives you a message that “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Search Maven. Please, contact your system administrator” when you try to remove it from Control Panel or “Access denied” error when removing the Search Maven 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 Search Maven 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 recently installed suspicious program

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

and for Mac:

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

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

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

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

Opera Browser:

Generally, Search Maven 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 Search Maven extension.
4. Click Uninstall button.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Search Maven installs a search engine 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.

How to block ads and pop-ups from Search Maven

AdGuard main window

AdGuard general settings

AdGuard browser assistant

Search Maven push notifications, 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 a malicious website, using an advertising script. Also, apps that generate “Search Maven” ads and banners 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:

Final tips

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs, like Search Maven, 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 Search Maven.