How to remove Baro Search (barosearch.com)

What is Barosearch.com

Users might see Barosearch.com as their default homepage domain due to a browser hijacker infection. Browser hijackers are a type of unwanted software designed to cause various browser changes, such as replacement of homepages, assignment of new search engines, and even excessive generation of ads. When users are infected with this hijacker (usually a browser extension called Baro Search), all search queries get redirected through barosearch.com to trafficjunction.com and then finish on the legitimate Bing.com. Cybercriminals involve a chain of various domains to generate fake traffic and gain money on advertising content, for instance. It is also worth noting that many hijackers can surveil browser-related data. This means sensitive information like passwords, IP-addresses, or geolocations may end up in the hands of threat actors for future exploitation. This is why we recommend you get rid of these changes and make sure this unwanted software in charge is removed from your browser and PC as well. Follow our guide below to do it fast and without traces.

How Barosearch.com infected your computer

Browser hijackers and other potentially unwanted software is often distributed via third-party program installers. It can be some pirated or cracked software that contains additional offers on top of the main program. Such offers can be disguised as something legitimate or useful, but in reality, bring only problems to users who agreed to install them. As a rule, their place is often in “Advanced” or “Custom” sections, which may pop up at some point of program installation. Unless the offer is deselected manually by users, it will most likely install itself after the end of the setup. It is also possible that some unwanted extension was offered through a dubious webpage that you opened by accident. Be careful installing such software and better use only official and verified resources. Avoid visiting dubious pages and protect your system with modern anti-malware tools – more information on this can be found in our article below.

1. Download Baro Search Removal Tool
2. Remove Baro Search from Control Panel and Applications
3. Remove Baro Search extensions from browsers
4. Reset browser search and homepage settings
5. Alternative way to remove Baro Search search redirects
6. Clean browser shortcuts from Baro Search
7. How to protect from threats like Baro Search

Remove Baro Search manually for free

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

Note: Baro Search 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 Baro Search from Control Panel or Applications

To start removing Baro Search you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names – “Baro Search”. 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, Windows 11, or Mac.

Remove Baro Search from Windows XP:

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

Remove Baro Search from Windows 7:

1. Click Start button.
2. Then go to Control Panel.
3. Click Uninstall a Program.
4. Find Baro Search or other suspicious program and click Uninstall.

Remove Baro Search 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 Baro Search or other suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove Baro Search from Windows 10:

There are 2 ways to uninstall Baro Search 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 Baro Search or other 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 Baro Search or other suspicious program in the list.
4. Click on it and then click Uninstall button above.

Remove Baro Search from Windows 11:

1. Right-click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Settings.
3. Click on the Apps tab on the left side.
4. Click Apps & features and locate Baro Search or other recently installed suspicious program in the list.
5. Click on 3-dots icon near it and then click Uninstall button near it.
6. Depending on the type of application (Windows Store app or classic Win32 app) it will be removed immediately or you will need to confirm the action and go through standard uninstall procedure.

Remove Baro Search from Mac:

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

Cannot uninstall Baro Search in Windows

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

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

Cannot uninstall Baro Search in MacOS

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

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

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

Uninstalling Baro Search from Control Panel or Applications often does not bring the desired effect. It sometimes has a browser extension and it may still be active in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Here are instructions on how to remove the Baro Search extension from your browsers manually.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://extensions.
3. Find Baro Search extension.
4. Click the Remove button 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. Find Baro Search extension.
4. Click three-dots icon near it and choose Remove in the menu.
5. In opened dialog window click Remove button to confirm the action.
6. Remove all suspicious extensions from the list.

Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Click Extensions tab.
3. Find Baro Search extension.
4. Click Uninstall button to remove it.

Microsoft Edge:

1. Start Microsoft Edge browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) edge://extensions.
3. Find Baro Search extension.
4. Click Remove link under the name of extension.
5. In opened dialog window click Remove button to confirm the action.
6. 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 Baro Search from Internet Explorer, please, perform instructions for uninstalling the program from Control Panel. To disable Baro Search, 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 Baro Search or other suspicious extensions.
6. Also disable other suspicious extensions from the list.

Opera Browser:

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

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Baro Search installs a search engine (barosearch.com), that hijacks your browsers. Here is the instruction to reset your browser’s homepage, new tab, and search engine to default values.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://settings.
3. On the left panel expand Advanced options.
4. Choose Reset and clean up.
5. Click on Restore settings to their original defaults link and confirm by clicking Reset button.

Google Chrome > Settings > Advanced

Reset and clean up

Reset Google Chrome

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:support.
3. Click Refresh Firefox… button.
4. Click Refresh Firefox button in opened dialog window to confirm.

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.

Microsoft Edge:

1. Start Microsoft Edge browser
2. Click on 3-dots icon in the top-right corner and choose Settings.
3. On the left panel find and click Reset settings option.
4. Click on Restore settings to their default values link and confirm by clicking Reset button.

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. Start Opera browser and click on Opera icon in the top-left corner.
2. Choose Settings and click Advanced on the left side and choose Browser.
3. Scroll down to the very bottom and click on Restore settings to their original defaults link.
4. Confirm by clicking Reset button.

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 rating including related to Baro Search. You can also reset your browser settings for each of your browsers: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox.

Download Avast Browser Cleanup

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:

Download Shortcut Cleaner

How to protect from threats, like Baro Search, in future


SpyHunter 5 Dashboard

SpyHunter 5 Results

SpyHunter 5 System Guard

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs like Baro Search 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-virus programs is SpyHunter 5. It can protect your PC from threats like Baro Search.

Download SpyHunter 5

Download SpyHunter for Mac