How to remove Search In Tabs (searchintabs.com)

What is Search In Tabs

Search In Tabs is a browser extension usually installed to Google Chrome along with bundled software. It acts as a browser hijacker, replacing the default search engine with searchintabs.com and as adware, generating ads and pop-ups on various websites. This means that users are more likely to receive Search In Tabs by accident rather than on purpose. This makes such applications categorized as Potentially Unwanted Programs. Analyzing the behavior of Search In Tabs helps testify its hijacking abilities. The most obvious traits are the change of a search engine and the display of unwanted banners whilst surfing the web. Search In Tabs does employ advertising networks to show various ads in favor of revenue gains. Unfortunately, these ads are often embedded with links redirecting users to shady or dangerous pages. Also, a good point to mention is that browser hijackers have data-tracking abilities. It means that users impacted by such an infection may also be tracked by cybercriminals for passwords, IP addresses, geolocations, and other types of data collected. Bearing such a threat, Search In Tabs can damage your privacy and make you a victim to make money on. This is why it is important to remove Search In Tabs and everything related to it from your PC as soon as possible.

How Search In Tabs infected your computer

As mentioned above, potentially unwanted programs are commonly spread via other software. Usually, this list consists of pirated or cracked programs downloaded by many users. As a rule, most of them are bundled into so-called repacks that contain third-party offers. Being positioned inside of “Advanced/Custom” sections, these offers are marked as something legitimate or even “useful”. Unfortunately, such names are meaningless as statistics show the opposite. Most of them, like Search In Tabs, are not intended to deliver a better user experience whatsoever. Instead, they cause unpleasant changes that downgrade many browsing features. Installing free and unofficial software is always a risk of getting infected with third-party apps, however, it can be minimized by being more careful and attentive whilst installing a program. Remember that checking all of the sections and setup settings will be the path towards safer and virus-free installations.

Remove Search In Tabs manually for free

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

Disable push notifications from searchintabs.com in browsers

Remove searchintabs.com from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Google Chrome

1. Go to Google Chrome settings, by clicking 3-dots icon in the top-right corner and choosing Settings.
2. Open advanced settings by clicking Advanced in the bottom.
3. Under opened Privacy and security tab, choose Content settings.
4. Click on Notifications menu (with the bell icon).
5. Set up preferred overall settings for push notifications and click Manage exceptions… button.
6. Find searchintabs.com in the list and click cross icon to remove it. Click Done button to confirm the action.

Remove searchintabs.com from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Mozilla Firefox

1. Go to Mozilla Firefox options, by clicking 3-bars icon in the top-right corner and choosing Options.
2. Choose Content tab on the left side.
3. Under Notifications, set up preferred overall settings for push-notifications and click Choose… button.
4. Find searchintabs.com in the list and click Remove site to remove it.
5. Click Save Changes button to confirm the action.

Remove searchintabs.com from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Safari

1. Open Safari, and in the top menu click Safari, choose Preferences.
2. In the Preferences window, click on Websites tab.
3. On the left side, choose Notifications. You will see the list of websites and their settings for showing notifications.
4. Find searchintabs.com in the list and click Remove button.

Remove searchintabs.com from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Android (Chrome)

1. Open Google Chrome app on Android, and tap on three dots to open main menu.
2. In the drop-down menu choose Settings, scroll down and under Advanced section tap on Site Settings.
3. In the Site Settings menu tap on Notifications.
4. In the Allowed list of websites allowed to show notifications find searchintabs.com, tap on it and in the bottom of the window tap on Clean & Reset button.
5. Confirm your action by tapping on Clean & Reset again in opened dialog box.

Remove searchintabs.com from websites, allowed to show push-notifications in Microsoft Edge

1. Open Microsoft Edge, and click on the three-dots menu, in the top-right corner.
2. In the drop-down menu choose Settings, and in the left part click Advanced.
3. Under Website permissions section, click Manage permissions button.
4. Find searchintabs.com in the list and click on the cross sign to remove the setting and disable its notifications.

Note: Search In Tabs 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 Search In Tabs from Control Panel

To start removing Search In Tabs you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names – “Search In Tabs” or “searchintabs.com”. 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 Search In Tabs from Mac:

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

Remove Search In Tabs from Windows XP:

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

Remove Search In Tabs from Windows 7:

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

Remove Search In Tabs 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 Search In Tabs or other suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove Search In Tabs from Windows 10:

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

Cannot uninstall Search In Tabs

In some cases, Search In Tabs won’t uninstall and gives you the message, that “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Search In Tabs. Please, contact your system administrator” when you try to remove it from Control Panel or “Access denied” error when removing the Search In Tabs 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 Search In Tabs in Safe Mode. To boot in Safe Mode do the following:

1. Reboot your computer.
2. While it starts booting type 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 Search In Tabs 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 Search In Tabs using instructions above, or it keeps coming back, you can use free AppCleaner for Mac to remove all residual data and libraries of Search In Tabs. Follow instructions below:

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

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

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

Opera Browser:

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

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Search In Tabs installs a search engine (searchintabs.com), 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.

For safe and effective browser extension removal use avast! Browser Cleanup utility. Run it with administrator privileges and remove all extensions with bad ratings including related to Search In Tabs. 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

Final tips

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs like Search In Tabs may become a real headache as they are hard to remove and able to 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 Search In Tabs.