What is Zum.com?
Zum.com is a South Korean search page promoted by a browser hijacker that can most commonly enter your computer with a legitimate software installer, such as ALZip and ALSee or collectively called as ALTools PC utilities. This browser hijacker has been reported to only infect Internet Explorer browsers. Once it infiltrates your system, it sets this search page as your new home page. Our malware specialists at Anti-Spyware-101.com say that it may not yet be popular to be spread in freeware bundles, but this might change in the future. Therefore, we think it is also important for you to know how you can avoid such bundles not to get your computer infected with all kinds of malware threats. Please continue reading our article to find out more about this browser hijacker and how it may cause system security issues for you. At the end you will also learn how you can remove Zum.com so that you can protect your computer from unnecessary exposure to potentially unsafe web content.
Where does Zum.com come from?
Research shows that this search page is hosted on 74.113.237.180 IP address, which is located in Yonkers, New York. Our researchers have found that this browser hijacker mostly appears on your computer when you install any software from the ALTools PC utilities (altools.com). These applications are developed by ESTsoft (estsoft.com) and they all seem to be legitimate themselves. As a matter of fact, users tend to overlook the related checkbox that usually offers them an opportunity to opt out of certain browser setting changes during installation. But it is also possible that only the license agreement mentions these changes, which most users do not even read carefully.
In order to promote such a search page to a wider “audience,” it is possible that this hijacker will appear in freeware bundles in the future. As a matter of fact, most browser hijackers use this method to be distributed all over the web. Therefore, it may be vital for you to know that suspicious bundles containing malware infections can be downloaded from questionable websites, including pornographic, torrent, and shareware sites. It is also possible that your computer is infected with adware programs and they generate unsafe third-party advertisements or hijack legitimate advertisements to redirect you to malicious websites or to download infected bundles in the background. If you are in doubt how this browser hijacker has sneaked onto your computer, you should definitely scan your PC with a reliable malware scanner after removing Zum.com.
How does Zum.com work?
Statistics indicate that this browser hijacker is most popular in South Korea (96.1%) and the United States (1.9%). It also seems that this hijacker is increasing in popularity. Although this search page looks totally legitimate at first sight, the truth is, it has no use for you unless you can read Korean. But since there are a number of third-party ads on this page and the search result might also be manipulated to include promoted third parties, we believe that you are better off not engaging with this page at all. Since clicking on potentially unreliable content can result in landing on unsafe websites operated by criminals, you should not keep this browser hijacker in your browser. It is best to remove Zum.com and any other potentially harmful applications and tools that may expose you to unreliable third-party web content.
How do I delete Zum.com?
Since this browser hijacker only affects Internet Explorer, getting rid of it is not that complicated. As a matter of fact, you have several options. First, you can simply reset your Internet Explorer browser. Second, you can manually overwrite the related registry value data (HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main|Start Page) with a home page URL of your preference. If you need assistance with any of these options, please use our instructions below. Finally, you can also use a professional automated antimalware tool that not only can eliminate all existing threats from your PC, but it can also protect your operating system from the penetration of all known malware infections.
You can increase the security level of your computer if you keep some basic rules of web surfing as well. For example, always make sure that the software you are about to download is a reliable and useful one. The same goes for the website where you are planning to download it. We also suggest that you should not click on random and suspicious-looking third-party advertisements. Keep you drivers and software regularly updated to avoid security holes that may be exploited by cyber criminals. With these simple steps you can actually do a lot for the protection of your system and your privacy as well.
Remove Zum.com from Internet Explorer
- Tap Alt+T and select Internet Options.
- Click on the Advanced tab and press Reset.
- Tick the Delete personal settings checkbox.
- Press Reset and press Close.
Manual Zum.com removal
- Tap Win+R and type in regedit to start up the Windows Registry editor.
- Find the following registry key and value name: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page.
- If the value data is set to zum.com, overwrite it with a home page URL of your preference (e.g., google.com).
- Exit the editor.
tested removal of Zum.com*
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