How to remove Desktop Dock

What is Desktop Dock

Desktop Dock is a malicious program that hijacks your browser’s homepage and search engine, redirecting your search queries through its own search system, often leading to search.yahoo.com. It is known to inject unwanted advertisements into websites you visit, which can lead to further malware infections or scams. Desktop Dock can affect major web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. It installs as a browser extension or program and can cause significant changes to browser settings, such as altering the default search engine or homepage. To remove Desktop Dock from your computer, you should uninstall any suspicious programs from your computer through the Control Panel or system settings, remove malicious browser extensions from your affected browsers, reset your browsers to their default settings to undo changes made by Desktop Dock, and run a full system scan with a trusted anti-malware tool, such as Malwarebytes or Spyhunter, to detect and remove any remaining traces of the malware. The main purpose of this article is to provide general information about Desktop Dock, its methods of infection, and the browsers it affects, as well as to guide users on prevention and removal strategies.

How Desktop Dock infects computers

Desktop Dock typically gets installed on users’ computers without their clear knowledge. It is often bundled with other free software that users download from the internet. During the installation process of the free software, users may inadvertently agree to install Desktop Dock as well, especially if they do not opt for custom installation settings or fail to uncheck boxes related to the installation of additional programs. To prevent the installation of Desktop Dock and similar PUPs, it is important to always download software from official vendor websites, opt for custom or advanced installation options to deselect any additional software offered, read installation prompts carefully to avoid unintentionally agreeing to install unwanted programs, keep your operating system and software updated to patch any security vulnerabilities, and use reputable antivirus and anti-malware software to provide real-time protection.

1. Download Desktop Dock Removal Tool
2. Remove Desktop Dock from Control Panel and Applications
3. Remove Desktop Dock extensions from browsers
4. Reset browser search and homepage settings
5. Alternative way to remove Desktop Dock search redirects
6. Clean browser shortcuts from Desktop Dock
7. How to protect from threats like Desktop Dock

Remove Desktop Dock manually for free

Here is a manual step-by-step tutorial for full Desktop Dock removal from your computer. This works 99% and was checked with the latest versions of the Desktop Dock an installer on operating systems with the latest updates and browser versions.

Note: Desktop Dock can be installed as Google Chrome extension as Administrator (you may see Installed by enterprise policy or Your browser is managed by your organization inscription near it), and this will not allow removal. Therefore, before starting removal process, perform these actions:

1. Start the Command Prompt by clicking the Start menu button and typing command prompt (or just searching for “command prompt” in Windows 10 search field). Right click on the Command Prompt result and choose Run as Administrator.



2. Type in and execute the following commands:

   
rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers"
rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy"
gpupdate /force

Remove Desktop Dock from Control Panel or Applications

To start removing Desktop Dock you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names – “Desktop Dock”. It should uninstall correctly, however, we recommend you to use IObit Uninstaller to clean leftover items after uninstalling. Here are instructions for Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11, or Mac.

Remove Desktop Dock from Windows XP:

1. Click on Start button.
2. Choose Control Panel.
3. Click Add or Remove Programs.
4. Find Desktop Dock-related or other suspicious program.
5. Click Uninstall.

Remove Desktop Dock from Windows 7:

1. Click Start button.
2. Then go to Control Panel.
3. Click Uninstall a Program.
4. Find Desktop Dock-related or other suspicious program and click Uninstall.

Remove Desktop Dock from Windows 8:

1. Hover mouse pointer to the bottom-right corner to see Menu.
2. Click Search.
3. After that click Apps.
4. Then Control Panel.
5. Click Uninstall a Program under Programs.
6. Find Desktop Dock-related or other suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove Desktop Dock from Windows 10:

There are 2 ways to uninstall Desktop Dock from Windows 10

Way one

1. Click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Settings.
3. Click on the System tile.
4. Click Apps & features and locate Desktop Dock-related or other suspicious program in the list.
5. Click on it and then click Uninstall button near it.

Way two (classic)

1. Right-click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Programs and Features.
3. Locate Desktop Dock-related or other suspicious program in the list.
4. Click on it and then click Uninstall button above.

Remove Desktop Dock from Windows 11:

1. Right-click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Settings.
3. Click on the Apps tab on the left side.
4. Click Apps & features and locate Desktop Dock-related or other recently installed suspicious program in the list.
5. Click on 3-dots icon near it and then click Uninstall button near it.
6. Depending on the type of application (Windows Store app or classic Win32 app) it will be removed immediately or you will need to confirm the action and go through standard uninstall procedure.

Remove Desktop Dock from Mac:

1. In the Finder sidebar, click Applications.
2. Desktop Dock might have an Uninstaller.
3. Otherwise, drag Desktop Dock from the Applications folder to the Trash (located at the end of the Dock).
4. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash.

Cannot uninstall Desktop Dock in Windows

In some cases, Desktop Dock won’t uninstall and gives you the message, that “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Desktop Dock. Please, contact your system administrator” when you try to remove it from Control Panel or “Access denied” error when removing the Desktop Dock folder and files. This happens because the process or service does not allow you to do it. In this case, I will recommend you to use SpyHunter 5 or Malwarebytes or uninstall Desktop Dock in Safe Mode. To boot in Safe Mode do the following:

1. Reboot your computer.
2. While it starts booting press F8 button.
3. This will open Advanced Boot Options menu.
4. Choose Safe Mode and wait until Windows loads.
5. Go to Control Panel > Uninstall a program and remove Desktop Dock or other suspicious program

>> See detailed instructions and video tutorial on how to boot in Safe Mode

Cannot uninstall Desktop Dock in MacOS

If you can’t uninstall Desktop Dock using instructions above, or it keeps coming back, you can use free AppCleaner for Mac to remove all residual data and libraries of Desktop Dock. Follow instructions below:

1. Download free AppCleaner.
2. Drag Desktop Dock from Applications folder to AppCleaner window.
3. Choose files and folders you want to remove along with Desktop Dock.
4. Click Delete button.

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

Uninstalling Desktop Dock from Control Panel or Applications often does not bring the desired effect. It sometimes has a browser extension and it may still be active in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Here are instructions on how to remove Desktop Dock extension from your browsers manually.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://extensions.
3. Find Desktop Dock extension.
4. Click the Remove button to remove them.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:addons.
3. Find Desktop Dock extension.
4. Click three-dots icon near it and choose Remove in the menu.
5. In opened dialog window click Remove button to confirm the action.
6. Remove all suspicious extensions from the list.

Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Click Extensions tab.
3. Find Desktop Dock extension.
4. Click Uninstall button to remove it.

Microsoft Edge:

1. Start Microsoft Edge browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) edge://extensions.
3. Find Desktop Dock extension.
4. Click Remove link under the name of extension.
5. In opened dialog window click Remove button to confirm the action.
6. Remove all suspicious extensions from the list.

Internet Explorer (9, 10, 11):

Note: There is no feature to remove browser extensions from browser in latest version of Internet Explorer. To remove Desktop Dock from Internet Explorer, please, perform instructions for uninstalling program from Control Panel. To disable Desktop Dock, please, do the following:

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click on gear/asterisk icon in the top-right corner.
3. In opened menu Manage Add-ons.
4. Select Toolbars and Extensions.
5. Click Disable Desktop Dock or other suspicious extensions.
6. Also disable other suspicious extensions from the list.

Opera Browser:

Generally, Desktop Dock does not install in Opera browser however you can always double check. Do the following:

1. Start Opera browser.
2. Go to Tools > Extensions > Manage Extensions.
3. Find Desktop Dock or other suspicious extensions.
4. Click Uninstall button.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Desktop Dock installs a search engine, that hijacks your browsers. Here is the instruction to reset your browser’s homepage, new tab, and search engine to default values.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://settings.
3. On the left panel expand Advanced options.
4. Choose Reset and clean up.
5. Click on Restore settings to their original defaults link and confirm by clicking Reset button.

Google Chrome > Settings > Advanced

Reset and clean up

Reset Google Chrome

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:support.
3. Click Refresh Firefox… button.
4. Click Refresh Firefox button in opened dialog window to confirm.

Reset Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Go to the Privacy section of Safari’s preferences.
3. Click Remove All Website Data button.
4. In opened window click Remove Now button to remove data stored by websites in Safari.
5. Go to the Advanced section of Safari’s preferences.
6. Click the Show Develop menu in menu bar option.
7. In the menu click Develop and select Empty Caches from this menu.
8. Again, go to Safari menu and choose Clear History….
9. Choose to clear all history and click Clear History button.

Microsoft Edge:

1. Start Microsoft Edge browser
2. Click on 3-dots icon in the top-right corner and choose Settings.
3. On the left panel find and click Reset settings option.
4. Click on Restore settings to their default values link and confirm by clicking Reset button.

Internet Explorer (9, 10, 11):

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. Click on gear/asterisk icon in the top-right corner.
3. In opened menu choose Internet options.
4. Click Advanced tab.
5. Click Reset button.
6. Choose Delete personal settings and click Reset.

Opera Browser:

1. Start Opera browser and click on Opera icon in the top-left corner.
2. Choose Settings and click Advanced on the left side and choose Browser.
3. Scroll down to the very bottom and click on Restore settings to their original defaults link.
4. Confirm by clicking Reset button.

How to block ads and pop-ups, promoting Desktop Dock



Desktop Dock, in most cases, is promoted by ads and pop-ups on doubtful websites. These sites can redirect users’ browsers to Desktop Dock ads, generating advertising revenue for the attackers. The malware is often offered through these ads, leaving users puzzled about the origin of the software. In some cases, users may unknowingly install the Desktop Dock extension, which then injects advertisements into the websites they visit and redirects their search queries. Additionally, the malware can be distributed through other channels such as peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, misleading ads, and compromised or shady websites that trigger automatic downloads To protect your PC and browsers from phishing websites, pop-up ads, banners, malicious scripts it is recommended to use AdGuard. Download free trial here:

Download AdGuard for Windows

Download AdGuard for Mac

How to protect from threats, like Desktop Dock, in future


SpyHunter 5 Dashboard

SpyHunter 5 Results

SpyHunter 5 System Guard

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs like Desktop Dock may become a real headache as they are hard to remove and break your privacy. To keep safe from such threats we recommend you always use antivirus and one of the anti-malware programs available on the market. One of the best anti-virus programs is SpyHunter 5. It can protect your PC from threats like Desktop Dock.

Download SpyHunter for Windows

Download SpyHunter for Mac