Home Malware Programs Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) StartWidget

StartWidget

Posted: January 31, 2017

Threat Metric

Ranking: 14,967
Threat Level: 1/10
Infected PCs: 489
First Seen: January 31, 2017
Last Seen: September 18, 2023
OS(es) Affected: Windows


StartWidget is a Web browser extension that is advertised as a great utility for avid users of social media websites since it has the ability to enhance their Web browsing experience by providing them with Twitter updates, as well as with relevant media content that they might be interested in seeing. However, the StartWidget requests the users' permission to change their Web browser's default new tab page to Startwidgetsearch.com, a fairly unpopular search engine that is visited by the people who had the bad luck of installing the StartWidget software usually.

Using Startwidgetsearch.com on a daily basis will not expose you to potentially harmful content, nor will it degrade your Web browsing experience drastically. The landing page on Startwidgetsearch.com provides users with a search feature that uses the Yahoo Search to deliver results, as well as with a small array of bookmarked popular Web pages like Netflix, IMDB, Facebook, Gmail, Youtube, etc. The links lead to the original websites so that users should not worry about phishing or any other issues that some low-quality websites may cause.

Although both the Startwidgetsearch.com page and the StartWidget extension are not harmful, some users might not want them on their computers. The removal of the StartWidget software is a task that may be carried out manually by using your Web browser's extension manager to remove the unwanted program. If manual removal does not seem to work, then you'll be glad to hear that credible anti-malware applications also are good when it comes to identifying and removing Potentially Unwanted Programs like StartWidget.

Technical Details

Additional Information

The following URL's were detected:
startwidgetsearch.com
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