84,488,480 programs installed

Should I remove Safer-Surf?

What percent of users and experts removed it?
83% remove it17% keep it
Overall Sentiment
Bad
What do people think about it?
(click star to rate)
How common is it?
Global Rank #49,791
Reach 0.0015%
Lifespan of installation (until removal)
< 19.99 days
205.19 days >
Average installed length: 107.81 days

Safer-Surf

What is Safer-Surf?

Safer-Surf is an adware web browser extension/plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome that's primary purpose is to inject advertising in the web browser. Advertising is injected in the form of banner ads that are automatically placed in various spots of the browser that would not normally appear. Also, advertisments may include additional display ads, coupons, popups, price comparision and in-line text hyper links. The software will add a proxy server that sits in between the browser and the internet so that it can track web pages visited and the context of the page asn inject these ads. Additionally, the plugin will modify the browser's and operating system's functionality and will install an enable the plugin using a protection feature. The protection feature will prevent 3rd party programs including anti-virus programs from disabling the ad-serving proxy server.

Overview

Upon installation, it defines an auto-start registry entry which allows the program run on each boot for the user which installed it. It adds a background controller service that is set to automatically run. Delaying the start of this service is possible through the service manager. A scheduled task is added to Windows Task Scheduler in order to launch the program at various scheduled times (the schedule varies depending on the version). In the Mozilla Firefox browser, it will add an add-on. The main program executable is Safer-Surfw.exe. Typically most users end up uninstalling this just after a few days. The software installer includes 7 files and is usually about 1.43 MB (1,497,882 bytes).
  • Possible malware installed by this program
  • Starts automatically
  • Adds a background Windows Service
  • Installed as part of a co-bundle
  • The experts agree, you should remove it!
Warning, multiple anti-virus scanners have detected possible malware in Safer-Surf.
Safer-Surfw.exe (98b1700da13aa57781251551c191b75c) has been flagged by the following 20 scanners:
Anti-Virus softwareVersionDetection
Lavasoft Ad-Aware 1018 Application.Generic.615009
Antiy-AVL 0.1.0.1 Trojan/Win32.SGeneric
avast! 2014.9-140422 Win32:Adware-BLC [PUP]
AVG 2015.0.3496 Generic5
Bitdefender 1.0.20.560 Application.Generic.615009
Comodo Security 18107 Application.Win32.Adware.WDUnlocker.A
ESET-NOD32 8.9677 a variant of Win32/AdWare.AddLyrics.AJ
Fortinet FortiGate 4/22/2014 Riskware/AD150
F-Secure 11.2014-22-04_3 Application.Generic.615009
G Data 14.4.24 Application.Generic.615009
IKARUS anti.virus t3scan.1.6.1.0 Win32.SuspectCrc
Jiangmin KV140422 Adware/Agent.jop
K7 AntiVirus 13.176.11755 Adware
K7GW 13.176.11755 Adware ( 0049760f1 )
McAfee 5600.7152 Artemis!98B1700DA13A
McAfee-GW-Edition 7.7152 Artemis!98B1700DA13A
MicroWorld-eScan 15.0.0.336 Application.Generic.615009
Panda Antivirus 14.04.22.07 Trj/Genetic.gen
Vba32 AntiVirus 3.12.26.0 AdWare.Agent
VIPRE Antivirus 28240 Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT
Safer-Surf157.exe (b57e354909e03f6062ad32c9150a56fc) has been flagged by the following 14 scanners:
Anti-Virus softwareSoftware versionDetection
Lavasoft Ad-Aware 12.0.163.0 Application.Generic.607679
avast! 8.0.1489.320 Win32:Adware-BLR [Adw]
Bitdefender 7.2 Application.Generic.607679
ESET-NOD32 9639 a variant of Win32/AdWare.AD150.B
Fortinet FortiGate 4 Riskware/AD150
F-Secure 11.0.19100.45 Application.Generic.607679
G Data 24 Application.Generic.607679
K7 AntiVirus 9.176.11663 Adware ( 0049760f1 )
K7GW 9.176.11663 Adware ( 0049760f1 )
McAfee 6.0.4.564 Artemis!B57E354909E0
McAfee-GW-Edition 2013 Artemis!B57E354909E0
MicroWorld-eScan 12.0.250.0 Application.Generic.607679
Qihoo-360 1.0.0.1015 Win32/RootKit.Rootkit.7e5
VIPRE Antivirus 28044 Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT
safeS.exe (6a68b6292f1cb313d17fa286a8ac71dc) has been flagged by the following 4 scanners:
Anti-Virus softwareSoftware versionDetection
ESET-NOD32 9625 a variant of Win32/AdWare.AddLyrics.AI
Kaspersky 12.0.0.1225 not-a-virus:AdWare.Win32.Agent.ajzv
Qihoo-360 1.0.0.1015 Win32/Virus.Adware.e71
VIPRE Antivirus 27946 Adware.Agent
       View all 38 all detections
Safer-Surf has been found to be bundled with 3rd party software. If you have not purposefully installed this, you should be safe uninstalling it.

Program detailsProgram details

Displayed publisher: Safer-Surf software
Installation folder: C:\Program Files\safer-surf-soft
Uninstaller: C:\Program Files\Safer-Surf-soft\Uninstall.exe
Estimated size: 1.43 MB

Program filesFiles installed by Safer-Surf

Program executable:Safer-Surfw.exe (Malware detected)
Path:C:\Program Files\safer-surf-soft\Safer-Surfw.exe
MD5:98b1700da13aa57781251551c191b75c
Additional files:
  • (Malware detected) Safer-Surf157.exe
  • 157.xpi
  • BlockNSurf.exe - BlockNSurf (BlockNSurf Tray Link)
  • (Malware detected) Safer-Surfw.exe
  • (Malware detected) safeS.exe
  • Sqlite3.dll
  • Uninstall.exe

Program behaviorsBehaviors exhibited

2 Scheduled Tasks
  • Safer-Surfw.exe is scheduled as a task named 'Safer-Surf_wd' (runs daily at 2:36 PM).
  • safeS.exe is scheduled as a task named 'Safer-Surf Update' (runs daily at 5:49 PM).
2 Scheduled Tasks (Boot/Login)
  • Safer-Surfw.exe is automatically launched at startup through a scheduled task named Safer-Surf_wd.
  • safeS.exe is automatically launched at startup through a scheduled task named Safer-Surf Update.
Service
  • Safer-Surf157.exe runs as a service named 'Safer-Surf' (Safer-Surf).
Startup File (User Run)
  • BlockNSurf.exe is loaded in the current user (HKCU) registry as an auto-starting executable named 'BlockNSurf' and executes as C:\Program Files\Safer-Surf-soft\BlockNSurf.exe.

How do I remove Safer-Surf?

You can uninstall Safer-Surf from your computer by using the Add/Remove Program feature in the Window's Control Panel.
  1. On the Start menu (for Windows 8, right-click the screen's bottom-left corner), click Control Panel, and then, under Programs, do one of the following:
    • Windows Vista/7/8/10: Click Uninstall a Program.
    • Windows XP: Click Add or Remove Programs.
  2. When you find the program Safer-Surf, click it, and then do one of the following:
    • Windows Vista/7/8/10: Click Uninstall.
    • Windows XP: Click the Remove or Change/Remove tab (to the right of the program).
  3. Follow the prompts. A progress bar shows you how long it will take to remove Safer-Surf.
  4. If for some reason uninstallation fails, please install Microsoft's uninstall fixer utility which will help fix problems with programs that can't be uninstalled at support.microsoft.com.

How do I reset my web browser?

If your web browser homepage and search settings have been modfied by Safer-Surf you can restore them to their previous default settings.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome

OS VERSIONS
Win 7 (SP1) 48%
Win XP 3%
 
WHEN IT STARTS
Auto-starting? Yes
(Found in the run registry)
 
USER ACTIONS
Uninstall it 83%
Keep it 17%

Windows OS versionsWindows

Which Windows OS versions does it run on?
Windows 7 48.28%
Windows 10 44.83%
Windows Vista 3.45%
Windows XP 3.45%
Which OS releases does it run on?
Windows 7 Home Premium 34.48%
Windows 8.1 20.69%
Windows 8 13.79%
Windows 7 Professional 10.34%
Windows Vista Home Premiu... 3.45%
Windows 8 Single Language 3.45%

Distribution by countryGeography

28.57% of installs come from France
Which countries install it?
  France 28.57%
  United States 17.86%
  Australia 10.71%
  Japan 10.71%
  United Kingdom 10.71%
  Germany 7.14%
  Belgium 3.57%
  Russia 3.57%
  Netherlands 3.57%
  Italy 3.57%

OEM distributionPC manufacturers

What PC manufacturers (OEMs) have it installed?
Acer 22.73%
Hewlett-Packard 22.73%
ASUS 13.64%
Toshiba 9.09%
Sony 4.55%
MSI 4.55%
Medion 4.55%
Lenovo 4.55%
Intel 4.55%
Alienware 4.55%
American Megatrends 4.55%
Common models
TOSHIBA SATELLITE C855-22... 4.00%
TOSHIBA dynabook R822/T8H... 4.00%
Sony SVT1311EFYS 4.00%
Packard Bell imedia S1710 4.00%
Packard Bell EasyNote TH... 4.00%
MouseComputer/7Pro64 W25A... 4.00%

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