Be careful if you have a Xiaomi smartphone! Many users have been mysteriously infected with Mintnav, a malware that changes the Google Chrome homepage to display pop-up advertising.

Be careful if you have a Xiaomi smartphone! Many users have been mysteriously infected with Mintnav, a malware that changes the Google Chrome homepage to display pop-up advertising.

For the past few months, many Xiaomi smartphone users have been complaining on Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), Xiaomi Community and Google’s support page about a strange malware affecting their device. When they launch Google Chrome, instead of landing on the default homepage or the one they set up themselves, they are directed to a site called Mintnav. This does not inspire confidence, and rightly so!

It is a “browser hijacker” that has been circulating since the beginning of the year – the first testimonies date from March 2023 – and is still currently plaguing Xiaomi smartphones. Mintnav is not the most dangerous program in the world, but it modifies the settings of Chrome – or any other web browser – in order to inject advertising into it, which slows down the device while browsing the Internet. It is also known to collect and store your browsing data – information such as your search queries, your history or even the pages visited and your favorites – in order to personalize advertisements, but also certainly to sell them to third parties. Also, it can redirect search results to sponsored and dubious websites.

Mintnav: how to remove browser malware?

It is not known where the infection originated. Fortunately, it is very easy to remedy this since it suffices to redefine Google, Bing or any other search engine as the default engine. Here is the procedure to remove Mintnav from your Xiaomi phone.

► Open the Chrome app on your smartphone.

► Press the three vertical points at the top right, then go to Settings.

► Go to the section Home page.

► Under Open this pageyou will see that an address beginning with https://www.mintnav.com is selected.

► Delete the address and replace it with one of your choice (for example https://www.google.com/), or choose Chrome homepage. And now, everything is back to normal!