Startpage.com

Startpage.com Image

Startpage.com is a low quality search engine that is tied to a known browser hijacker scam. There have been numerous reports that involve browser redirects and pop-up windows related to the Startpage.com website. It is important to protect your computer from these kinds of attacks and to avoid installing any unknown browser extensions or toolbars, since this is the form these browser hijackers tend to take. The main purpose of browser hijacker attacks involving the Startpage.com website is to force computer users to view advertisements and click on affiliate marketing links. Browser hijackers associated with Startpage.com affect the most popular Web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. While not entirely malicious, the browser hijackers associated with Startpage.com can make the infected computer nearly unusable due to the presence of browser redirects, pop-up windows and other unwanted symptoms.

How the Techniques Used by the Startpage.com Browser Hijacker Work

The Startpage.com browser hijacker scam involves profiting from advertising and affiliate marketing by using black hat SEO techniques. They work by increasing a specific website's traffic enormously by forcing computer users to visit it repeatedly. These types of attacks have risen in popularity, in large part due to the fact that browser hijackers like these are not technically against the law in many parts of the world. This is because they are often installed by the computer users themselves, and often there's an option to opt out of their installation. Because of this, many PC security researchers do not consider these types of infections as malicious and classify them as Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs). One of the main characteristics of PUPs is that they cause symptoms on the infected computer that are more often linked to malware than to legitimate applications.

Problems Arising from Browser Hijackers Associated with Startpage.com

Some problems associated with Startpage.com include the following:

• Victims of these types of attacks have reported that their Web browser is redirected to the Startpage.com website repeatedly.
• The presence of browser hijackers associated with Startpage.com and other PUPs may decrease the infected computer's performance, slowing down its connection to the Internet and causing the victim's Web browser to crash frequently.
• These types of browser hijackers may often cause the victim's Web browser to display pop-up windows and error messages that may promote other, more dangerous types of malware.