The change in start-up pages and search engines in Internet browsers is a fairly common phenomenon, and many users very often underestimate the degree of risk associated with this, since in most cases web browsers and the entire operating system are exposed to viruses. Such threats most often belong to the classes Malware, Adware and Hijackers, and in fact, they are ordinary browser hijackers. But in the case of Webalta, the situation is much more complicated. Therefore, it is worth considering how to remove Webalta from Opera or from any other browser in more detail. But first, let's find out what it is.
What is Webalta?
In fact, this software product, penetrating browsers in the form of panels and add-ons, as well as replacing some of the default browser elements, is a relatively new Russian search engine, which generally does not apply to viruses. The problem is that its developers simply chose, so to speak, the wrong way to promote their product, making it a virus-like applet. This can often be observed during the installation of certain applications, when additional, supposedly affiliate software is installed along with the main components, that is, it penetrates user computers completely legally, while it has security and authenticity certificates, as well as corresponding digital signatures.
In this case, users should only blame themselves because they agreed to install such software products or simply ignored the corresponding installer suggestions. However, the main problem of the described search engine is that it is almost impossible to remove it using standard methods. Even if you change the start page and your preferred search engine in the browser itself (in the same “Opera”), when you restart the computer, Webalta is activated again. How to get rid of the Webalta search engine in Opera? For this, two cardinal methods can be distinguished, which are proposed for consideration. Despite the fact that the described solutions are provided specifically for the Opera browser, they are equally suitable for all known browsers without exception.
How to remove Webalta from Opera or from any other browser manually?
So why does the standard technique not work? Yes, just because the search engine creates a huge number of entries in completely different sections of the system registry, and such keys even when you uninstall this add-in by Windows operating systems are not deleted. All these residues and activate the search engine again. Thus, when speaking about how to remove Webalta from Opera, you must first get rid of all entries in the registry.
To do this, through the "Run" console, use the regedit command to call the editor and search for (Ctrl + F) the name of the search engine, while noting the item for section names, parameter names and values. Everything that will at least somehow correspond to this search engine, delete. You can navigate through the results by pressing the F3 key or the search continue button until a message about its end is displayed.
But that is not all. Now let's see how to remove Webalta from the Opera once and for all.
At the next stage, if there is no suitable software at hand, you need to go to the programs and components section located in the Control Panel and find the application in the list provided. Webalta needs to be removed twice. The first uninstallation uninstalls the main components (which are previously “unlocked” by removing the registry keys), the second removes the start pages and settings.
After that, so to speak, for fidelity, you need to search by the name of the remote applet in the "Explorer", moreover, for all available partitions, and not just for a disk with Windows or Opera browser installed. Accordingly, all found files and folders should also be deleted. If, which is unlikely, something will be blocked for deletion, use the Unlocker utility, after which you need to unlock the necessary objects, and select deletion as the action. We will stop at this for now.
How to remove Webalta from "Opera" with the help of uninstallers?
All of the above actions are much easier to perform in special applications, uninstallers. For example, the universal iObit Uninstaller package is suitable for this.
In it, you can search for the installed program in the main list of applications, and also refer to the removal section of the browser panels. In any case, it is immediately advisable to note the item for removing residues (files, directories and registry entries). All this remaining garbage will be deleted automatically. Only after this, many recommend restarting the system, which you can disagree with.
Additional Actions
If we are talking about how to completely remove Webalta from Opera, we should not forget that the browser’s shortcut properties may contain the same redirect subscription that activates the installation of this component again.
To get rid of it, through RMB on the browser icon, select the properties item, and then on the tab that opens, in the description of the path to the executable object (and this is the file Launcher.exe), remove everything that is attributed after the extension, and then save the changes. At the same time, change the search engine and the start page in the browser itself. And only after that you can restart the computer. There will be no trace of this software for sure.