Home Malware Programs Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) EmojiSearch

EmojiSearch

Posted: November 15, 2017

Threat Metric

Ranking: 8,334
Threat Level: 1/10
Infected PCs: 1,321
First Seen: May 18, 2021
Last Seen: October 14, 2023
OS(es) Affected: Windows

EmojiSearch is classified as a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP), which is meant to work as a browser extension that gives users the ability to access a huge collection of emoticons from their Web browser directly. However, what users might not notice is that when they attempt to install EmojiSearch, the extension will ask for permission to modify their browser's default search settings, as well as to read and change data on all websites they browse. The latter permission is offered associated with advertising activities, and it may allow EmojiSearch to inject paid ads in opened pages, therefore diminishing the user's Web browsing experience.

The other change that EmojiSearch brings is that the user's default search aggregator will be set to Feed.emoji-search.com. Users might not notice a negative impact from this change because all search queries executed through Feed.emoji-search.com will land the user on a search results page hosted by Yahoo. While this certainly means that EmojiSearch will provide reliable search results, you should not forget that the extension's publisher might change the way it functions at any time so that the add-on might not be that reliable a few weeks from now.

If you are interested in removing EmojiSearch and reverting the changes it made to your browser, then you should consider using a suitable PC security utility to scan the computer and remove EmojiSearch's files.

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