Many computer users complain that their home page, default search engine and new tab page has been changed to search.smartaddressbar.com or smartaddressbar.com out of nowhere. They think it is a virus responsible for these redirections. The truth is that unwanted changes are caused by Smart Address Bar – a browser extension that gets installed to computers without a clear user‘s consent.

It is not a virus and does not cause any direct harm to your PC but it might be very annoying due to redirections and advertisements displayed. Moreover, it collects information about your Internet browsing habits and sends it to a remote server. The data is usually used for targeted marketing campaigns. Now many know that such search tools like search.smartaddressbar.com or smartaddressbar.com display advertisements among search results without marking them any different. As a rule of thumb the owners of the tool do not take any responsibility for the content displayed therefore it is not surprising that some of the links promoted might be corrupted or lead to malicious websites this way infecting your computer with viruses.

Please note that having Smart Address Bar installed to your computer and experiencing redirections does not add any value to your computer using. On the contrary, it only increases a risk of getting system infected with malware. It is strongly recommended to remove this browser hijacker and any other unwanted applications that might have come with it as soon as possible. For more information please refer to Smart Address Bar removal guide here. In order to avoid similar changes in the future be careful when installing any free applications as many adware and browser hijackers come bundled with them. We recommend using custom installation, reading installation wizard very attentively and removing any check boxes for the applications that are unfamiliar to you.