It's no secret that the largest Internet companies are the owners of popular search engines. Vivid examples of this are Google and Yandex, which are huge corporations that largely exist at the expense of their search engines. There are also smaller players in this market, including Russian companies. Well known for its postal service Mail.ru also has its own search engine, which it does its best to promote, sometimes resorting to “gray” methods. In this article, we will tell you what to do if the go.mail.ru search string is automatically embedded in your browser, and how to remove all Mail.ru software from your computer.
How and why the go.mail.ru search string is installed
We noted above that the largest Russian and foreign IT companies are trying to make money using the search engine. It is an excellent springboard for selling advertising, but it is quite difficult to displace competitors in this segment using “whitewash” methods for less common products, even from well-known brands.
To popularize search engine Mail, as well as some of its other products, the company has created a special tool. It is distributed by “gray” methods, that is, together with other free applications. Users inadvertently install mail products, and then have difficulty removing them.
The go.mail.ru product itself is not viral. At the same time, he is “on the brink.” Search string from mail, as well as Amigo browser, the Mail Agent program and other company products are most often installed in a single “pack” not at the user’s request. But this is not the main problem, since in addition to installation on the computer, they make changes to the way browsers work. After this, users have a problem with removing go.mail.ru from Opera, Chrome, Firefox and other browsers.
What is the Mail app suite?
If you notice that the search engine and the start page for Mail have changed in browsers, and also programs that you did not install, in particular Mail Agent, began to launch on your computer from startup, then your HDD The entire go.mail.ru application package was installed. It contains the following programs:
This is only a small part of what is installed when accidentally installing Mail programs. In addition to the applications listed above, new shortcuts appear on the computer desktop, both stand-alone applications and browser bookmarks. In particular, among them you can see the label VKonakte, Odnoklassniki, Amigo.Music and others.
Go.mail.ru, Comet, Amigo: How to remove an application package from your computer and browser
There is no program that would allow you to immediately erase all information about Mail group applications from your computer. When installed, the Mail software package makes a lot of changes to the way your browser and computer work, which must be corrected manually. Instructions for removing go.mail.ru from the browser and related applications from the computer should be followed in the order in which they are given below.
Step 1. Removing Amigo, Comet and go.mail.ru from your hard drive
The process of cleaning your computer from Mail company software should begin by removing programs that are installed on your hard drive. To do this, you need to run the Add or Remove Programs application:
- If you are using Windows 8 or older, press the Windows + R key combination on your keyboard to go to the “Run” line, then write the command appwiz.cpl and click “OK”.
- In others Windows versions follow the path “Start” - “Control Panel” - “Add or Remove Programs” (or “Start” - “Control Panel” - “Programs” - “Programs and Features”).
When the window for installing and uninstalling programs opens, you need to find all Mail applications in it. If they were installed recently, you can sort them by installation date to make it easier to find them all. Otherwise, we recommend that you carefully review the list for the presence of all the applications that we mentioned above in this article. 
Each of the programs found that are related to Mail software should be removed.
Please note: When deleting Amigo Browser, you may be asked to confirm that it needs to be deleted along with all data. Don't forget to check the appropriate box and click "Delete".
Step 2: Clean your computer of remaining Mail programs
After going through the basic process of removing programs from your computer, some of them will leave their files on the system, and many will even continue to work. To erase them, you need to press the Ctrl+Alt+Del key combination on your keyboard and go to the “Task Manager”. If it opened in the basic version, then it should be expanded by clicking on the “More” button. After that, go to the “Processes” tab and find all the programs that are associated with software from Mail. When the next program from a Russian company is found among active processes, do the following:
After this, it is important to erase the file that is responsible for automatic download Mail applications on your computer and updating them. The file is located in the MailRu folder along the path C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local. If you can’t find it this way, use a search on your computer and find the MailRuUpdater.exe file. Erase it when you find it. 
Step 3. Deleting temporary files Amigo, Comet, Mail
Files from Mail programs remain in the temporary data storage folder on the computer, that is, in the Temp folder. They need to be removed from there. To do this, go to the address on your computer:
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp
Select everything in the Temp folder and delete it to ensure you get rid of all data that may relate to the Mail software. Some temporary files may be prohibited from deletion, which will be reported by the operating system. 
Step 4. Removing Mail, Amigo and Comet from startup
Most convenient application, which allows you to manage startup programs on your computer, is CCleaner. Download it to your computer and install it, after which you need to launch it and go to the “Tools” menu. In it we are interested in the “Startup” tab. In it we look for files that may relate to Mail programs; the screenshot below shows some of them. We recommend that you carefully check the list of files in startup and delete all suspicious ones. 
To make sure your computer is clean, in the CCleaner program you can go to the “Cleaning” item in the left menu, then click the “Analysis” button, and when finished, select the “Cleaning” item. 
Step 5: Clear the registry of Mail files
Launch the registry editor, to do this, press the Windows + R key combination on your keyboard and enter the Regedit command.
In the registry window that opens, you need to top menu select “Edit” - “Find” and search for all files that contain a mention of “Mail.ru”. Found files must be deleted. 
Repeat the procedure for searching and deleting files for the queries “Kometa” and “Amigo”.
Step 6. Removing go.mail.ru from Opera, Chrome, Firefox and other browsers
The last step will be to remove the effects of running Mail programs on your computer from the browser. Depending on the browser, this process will vary, but the key steps are the same for all web viewers.
Let's look at the process of eliminating the consequences of malicious software using the example of the most common browser - Google Chrome. To remove go.mail.ru from Chrome you need to:
Follow the 3 steps described in the browser you use to completely remove information about the mail software from it.
Upon completion of all actions to clean your computer from go.mail.ru, restart your computer and make sure that in the list installed programs, information about Mail programs did not appear in startup and in the browser again.
May the guys from mail.ru forgive me, but their so-called products are already tired of many readers with their intrusiveness. So, you installed some kind of program for yourself, and now instead of the usual start page, only mail.ru opens, and attempts to get rid of it were unsuccessful? Below I will describe how to remove mail from the start page.
A little theory
This situation arises because some programs unobtrusively install at least two additional applications:
- [email protected] is essentially a toolbar for your browser. Provides a search bar (from mail, of course), notifications about letters, traffic jams, exchange rates, weather and other little things from the same manufacturer.
- [email protected]- aka “Defender”. The program is extremely unclear and highest degree useless for the user. It protects the settings of the start page and the default search from changing. That is, this program does nothing except prevent you from changing the start page.
Every user personal computer may suddenly discover the established software, developed by Mail.Ru. The main problem is that these programs load the computer quite heavily, since they constantly work in background. This article will tell you how to completely remove Mail.Ru applications from your computer.
Before you begin to fix the problem, it is worth talking about the reasons for its occurrence in order to eliminate the likelihood of its occurrence in the future. Applications from Mail.ru are most often not distributed in a standard way(by downloading the installer yourself by the user). They come, so to speak, bundled with other software.
When installing a program, carefully monitor your actions. At some point, a window will appear in the installer asking you to install, for example, [email protected] or replace the standard search in the browser with a search from Mail.
If you notice this, uncheck all the boxes and continue installing the required program.
Remove Mail.Ru from the browser
If your default search engine in the browser has changed to search from Mail.Ru, it means that you did not check some box when installing the application. This is not the only manifestation of the influence of Mail.Ru software on browsers, but if you encounter a problem, check out the following article on our website.
Removing Mail.Ru from your computer
As was mentioned at the beginning of the article, products from Mail.Ru affect not only browsers, they can also be installed directly into the system. Removing them can be difficult for most users, so you should clearly indicate the steps to be performed.
Step 1: Uninstall programs
You must first clear your computer of Mail.Ru applications. The easiest way to do this is with the help of a pre-installed utility. "Programs and Features". There are articles on our website that describe in detail how to uninstall an application in different versions operating system.
More details:
How to remove programs in Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10
To quickly find products from Mail.Ru in the list of all programs installed on your computer, we recommend that you sort them by installation date.
Step 2: Delete folders
Uninstalling programs via "Programs and Features" will delete most files, but not all. To do this, you need to delete their directories, but the system will throw an error if there are running processes at that moment. Therefore, you need to disable them first.
After this, all files that belonged to the selected process will be deleted. If processes from Mail.Ru in "Task Manager" are still left, then do the same actions with them.
Step 3: Empty the Temp Folder
The application directories have been cleared, but their temporary files still remain on the computer. They are located along the following path:
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp
If you do not have the display of hidden directories enabled, then through "Conductor" you will not be able to follow the indicated path. We have an article on our website that tells you how to enable this option.
More details:
How to enable display hidden folders on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10
With show hidden items enabled, go to the above path and delete all contents of the folder "Temp". Don't be afraid to delete temporary files of other applications; this will not have a negative impact on their operation.
Step 4: Control Cleaning
Most of the Mail.Ru files have been erased from the computer, but manually deleting the remaining ones is almost impossible; for this it is best to use the CCleaner program. It will help clean your computer not only from residual Mail.Ru files, but also from other “garbage”. On our website there is detailed instructions by removal junk files using CCleaner.
Conclusion
After completing all the steps in this article, Mail.Ru files will be completely deleted from your computer. This will not only increase the volume free space disk, but will also improve the overall performance of the computer, which is much more important.
Do you want to get rid of many mailboxes and have a main e-mail? Or does a certain address receive tons of spam, so you want to get rid of it? In these and other cases, the optimal solution is to remove Mail.ru. What is needed for this and how to perform this operation, we will consider further.
What is needed to complete the task?
To successfully delete mail, two conditions must be met:- Internet-connected device.
- Personal data. If you have forgotten your login and password, you can try to recover your account through a special service. Just click on the button Forgot your password» and answer the service questions. Usually the system asks for a number mobile phone, additional email and answer the security question (you indicated the answer during registration). If the correct answers are given, you will be given back access to your mailbox. .
Step-by-step removal instructions
If the above conditions are met, you can begin the removal procedure by following the following instructions:
If you do not log into your email account for a long time, the system will automatically delete your email. This procedure is performed in order to relieve servers by deleting frozen accounts. It is not recommended to choose this method, since you will not be given time to restore.
Consequences of deletion
Besides mailbox you delete all Mail.ru products associated with it. For example, these could be accounts in " Mail replies», « My world" or " Mail games" The service provides the opportunity to restore mail within 90 days after deleting an e-mail. When this period expires, it will no longer be possible to restore the address and the entire set of options associated with it. In the next article we will tell you.Check to see if there are any important Mail.ru services that are registered to this address, and only then proceed to the removal instructions.
Video instructions for deleting mail
See how the deletion works using an example. Just repeat the steps performed in the video, and in a couple of minutes you will get rid of your mailbox on mail.ru.
A friend called me and asked me to help solve a problem with my computer. Arriving at his place, I opened the laptop and saw the following picture: shortcuts appeared on the desktop Amigo, Search on the Internet, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Kometa, Kinoroom Browser, Amigo.Music; “Start” was modified; appeared on the right “Comet Launch” panel. In addition, when starting any browser, the start page opened with the address smartinf.ru; has become the default search engine everywhere Mail.Ru.
In it, on the left, select the “” tab. Here in the first “Windows” tab we see what we have registered in the System Startup. We look here for records about software from Mail.Ru - then disable them and delete them.
I saw them right away - here they are: 
If you haven't guessed, the top line is Satellite; underneath it is Comet; and the third line is responsible for the fact that in our browsers it opens as the start page website smartinf.ru.
Take turns turn off each of these lines (there is a “Turn off” button on the right), and then press the “ button Delete”:
Having deleted these three lines, I carefully look through the entire list again - there is nothing suspicious anymore.
Now, using the same CCleaner, we’ll do a final cleaning, just in case:
Go to the “tab” on the left Cleaning” – then press the button “ Analysis” – and then the “ button Cleaning”:
After that, go to the “tab” Registry” - press the button “ Troubleshooting" - then " To correct” (you can save a copy of the register when offered) – “ Correct marked”:
5. Now let's get ours back browsers to the state they were in before “infection”.
In the browser Google Chrome press the button on the right top corner and select “Settings”. Next, select the item “ Open at startup” – “Specified Pages" - click " Add”:
Here we delete the line that is written: 
And then enter the name of the site we need: for example, yandex.ru.
We go further: “ Appearance
” – “Show button Home page
” – “Change”:
Instead of what is written here, we write our own (yandex.ru): 
Further: " Search” – change Mail.Ru to Yandex: 
Website smartinf.ru without asking, I created my own tab in the upper right corner of the browser: right-click on it - “ Unpin a tab”:
In the browser Internet Explorer
go to “Tools” – “Browser Options” – “General” tab. Here we write the Home page - yandex.ru:
In the browser Mozilla Firefox
Click the “Open menu” button in the upper right corner - then select “Settings”. Here on the “tab” Basic” change the Home page to yandex.ru:
On the “ Search” select the default search engine Yandex: 
After that, at the top left, close the tab that the site created smartinf.ru:
After that, restart your browser and make sure that everything is now displayed as before.
In my case, in the Mozilla Firefox browser, even after all the steps done above, there is no I didn’t want to change the start page: instead of Yandex every time the website smartinf.ru opened. If you have the same situation as me, then you need to do the following:
You need to go to the profile folder, which is located in the following path: C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\name using letters and numbers.default.
Having opened the folder, we find the file here user.js:
Let's open it using Notepad.
I had a line in it with a web address, which returned the site smartinf.ru as the home page every time: 
We don’t change anything in this file - we just we delete it:
Then we launch again Mozilla browser Firefox – in the settings we set it for the last time home page: yandex.ru. After this, we restart the browser - now everything should be in order: Yandex will open.
If suddenly this did not help, then in the same profile folder, find the file prefs.js and open it with Notepad: 
In the opened file, go to the menu bar in “ Edit” – “Find” – enter a word homepage– then press the “ button Find next”:
I have here after https The address is www.yandex.ru. If you write some nonsense in this line, replace it with the same address as mine: 
Well, that's basically it. Personally, the steps described above were enough for me to get rid of MailRu software. And it never appeared on the computer again.
Eat one more way get rid of traces of MailRu programs on your computer. But it is only suitable for experienced users, because... involves working with Windows registry. If you are familiar with the registry editor and understand all the possible consequences of working with it, then you can use this method. But I repeat, you shouldn’t go into the registry unless absolutely necessary.
To get into the editor Windows registry, go to “ Start” – “Execute” – in the window that opens, enter the word regedit and click OK. In the Registry Editor, go to the menu bar and select “ Edit” – “Find" Enter the word in the search bar Mail.ru:
Click the “Find Next” button. When the search ends, folders and files of the same name will be found: 
They will need to be removed. Having deleted one found folder, go to another by pressing the key F3 on keyboard. But this should not be done thoughtlessly: carefully look at what exactly you are deleting. And if you don’t know what this or that parameter or file is responsible for, it’s better not to touch it.