How to remove Homepage.re

What is Homepage.re

Back in 2018, Homepage.re used to be an extremely annoying browser hijacker which changed users’ homepages and search engines set by default. However, it is still common to see it infecting innocent users these days. Homepage.re brings completely new colors to your homepage. It changes its entire appearance to the black background, the new search box, and clickable icons meant to access frequently-used resources (e.g. Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, News, etc.). Developers of browser hijackers do not consent users upon arrival of new changes. Instead, they puzzle inexperienced people who end up endlessly thinking how and where these changes came from. Homepage.re is totally useless as there are no unique results generated that could be liked by users. The hijacker simply displays search queries from legitimate https://search.yahoo.com by Yahoo. This automatically says that Homepage.re pursues only revenue goals, but no improvements for browsing experience. It seeks to earn money on displayed ads and illegal traffic garnered via Yahoo.com. Also worth mentioning that browser hijackers can cause severe privacy issues due to potential data collection. Homepage.re may have access to whatever you search and enter during the browsing session. This and more threats brought in by Homepage.re prove it should be removed from your computer. To do this, follow the easy, yet effective guidelines presented below.

How Homepage.re infected your computer

Homepage.re is more likely to have an add-on/extension, which lets it run inside of your browser. However, such extensions are also supported by unwanted programs that may be installed on your system. Otherwise, Homepage.re should have been installed intentionally by yourself. Once an unwanted program gets settled inside of your system, it starts reconfiguring startup settings to make Homepage.re open each time at browser startup. Applications that cause browser hijackers to appear are usually inadvertently downloaded along with free, pirated, or cracked software from third-party pages. Developers bundle them into repacks as promotional offers, which can be selected within “Advanced” or “Custom” sections. Unfortunately, most users do not pay attention to them, which lets an unwanted program be installed at the end of the setup. This is why it is good to learn a lesson and start paying caution to such tricks prepared by the developers. If you are willing to get more educated upon PC protection against such threats in the future, follow our instructions below.

Remove Homepage.re manually for free

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

Note: Homepage.re 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 Homepage.re from Control Panel

To start removing Homepage.re you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names, but usually “SwiftSelect” or “Swift-S”. 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 or Mac.

Remove Homepage.re from Mac:

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

Remove Homepage.re from Windows XP:

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

Remove Homepage.re from Windows 7:

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

Remove Homepage.re 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 SwiftSelect or other suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove Homepage.re from Windows 10:

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

Cannot uninstall Homepage.re

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

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

and for Mac:

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

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

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

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

Opera Browser:

Generally, Homepage.re 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 SwiftSelect or other suspicious extensions.
4. Click Uninstall button.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Homepage.re installs a search engine that hijacks your browsers. Here is the 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.

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 Homepage.re. You can also reset your browser settings for each of your browsers: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox.