Remove Ask Search and Ask Toolbar (Uninstall Guide)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Remove Ask Search and Ask Toolbar (Uninstall Guide)

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Don't Copy From This Blog...

Ask Search and Ask Toolbar are very often incorrectly classified as virus/spyware that may cause search redirects. The majority of us prefer Google's search results but there's nothing wrong with ask.com. Our reader Peter says that Ask Toolbar was somehow installed on his computer. He managed to remove the toolbar but he can't find a way to remove Ask Search in Internet Explorer. So, we fired up Internet Explorer and installed Ask Toolbar on our computer, directly from ask.com. It's worth mentioning that ask.com may have agreements with other software developers and they may offer Ask Search and Ask Toolbar with their software. No offense, but you should read the whole end-user agreement very carefully before installing software that offers toolbars, third-party search providers and other utilities. Anyway, the toolbar can be uninstalled very easily, however, there are some problems with Ask Search indeed.

You have to manually remove Ask Search provider from your web browser and change your default home page. Please note, Ask Search affects both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. If your default search provider was set to Ask Search and you don't know how to get back to your favorite search engine, please follow the steps in the removal guide below. It has been created to help you to remove Ask Search and Ask Toolbar from your computer. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. You can also end an email to AskToolbarBugs@ask.com. Good luck and be safe online!

Ask Search and Ask Toolbar removal instructions:

1. First of all, download recommended anti-malware software and run a full system scan. It will detect and remove this infection from your computer. You may then follow the manual removal instructions below to remove the leftover traces of this browser hijacker. Hopefully you won't have to do that.

2. Go to the Start Menu. Select Control Panel → Add/Remove Programs.
If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, select Control Panel → Uninstall a Program.

3. Search for Ask Toolbar in the list. Select the program and click Remove button.
If you are using Windows Vista/7, click Uninstall up near the top of that window.

Remove Ask Search and Ask Toolbar from Google Chrome:

1. Click on Chrome menu button. Go to Tools → Extensions.

2. Click on the trashcan icon to remove the Ask Toolbar Chrome extension:

3. Click on Chrome menu button once again. Select Settings.

4. Click Manager search engines button under Search.

Select Google or any other search engine you like from the list and make it your default search engine provider.

Select Ask Search from the list and remove it by clicking the "X" mark as shown in the image below.

Remove Ask Search and Ask Toolbar in Internet Explorer:

1. Open Internet Explorer. Go to Tools → Manage Add-ons.

2. Select Toolbars and Extensions. Uninstall everything related to Ask.com and Ask Toolbar from the list.

3. Select Search Providers. First of all, choose Bing search engine and make it your default search provider (set as default).

Then select Ask Search and click Remove button to uninstall it (lower right corner of the window).

4. Go to Tools → Internet Options. Select General tab and click Use default button or enter your own website, e.g. gooog.com instead of websearch.ask.com. Click OK to save the changes.

Remove Ask Search and Ask Toolbar in Mozilla Firefox:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox. Go to Tools → Add-ons.