Spicy Start – What is it?

“Spicy Start” search hijacker is a potentially unwanted application (PUA)¹, that is promoted as a plugin for your internet browser. It is typically promoted as an add-on for Chrome or Firefox, that assists to search some special details, for instance, about sporting activity events, make your web browser a lot more safe, enable downloading of any type of video, et cetera. Also, this app adds the “Managed by your organization” feature (on Chrome browsers).

Nevertheless, the “Spicy Start” plugin is rather useless since all such features are currently built-in to your browser and/or system. Such marketing mottos are targeted at low-skilled computer users, for example, pensioners or schoolchildren. But occasionally even professional users are getting caught on such an attraction. In specific situations, this hijacker is distributed along with free apps.

How harmful is Spicy Start hijacker?

Besides its impracticality, Spicy Start hijacker is likewise pretty harmful for web browser use. It transforms your search engine to its particular – Spicystart.com, and likewise changes your background, adding its watermark on your wallpaper (or, sometimes, altering it to default with the mentioned symbol).

Besides seeable transformations done by Spicy Start hijacker, you can observe that a number of your search questions are redirecting to the suspicious web pages, full of links and ads – so-called doorway websites. Such sites can consist of web links for malware downloads. The possibility of redirecting increases if you try to launch Google search page forcibly.

But all these actions are more bothersome than really hazardous. The most significant threat, especially for individuals who have a great deal of secret information in their browsers, is embedded in data collecting functionalities. Cookie files, chats, often-visited web pages, as well as other activities are easily collected by Spicy Start hijacker.