How to remove Private Search Protection

What is Private Search Protection

Private Search Protection is a browser hijacker, which has been observed to target various browsers since 2018. Users infected with it usually experience changes in the default homepage and search engine – a common symptom of numerous other hijackers as well. Private Search Protection redirects entered queries through search.privatesearchprotection.com to private.search-protection.com. As a rule, browser hijackers do not have their own search engine, instead, they channel entered search queries through custom intermediary pages to legitimate portals like Yahoo, Bing, Google, and similar. This way cybercriminals generate illegal traffic to capitalize financially on it. In addition to this, browser hijackers tend to promote unwanted ads and collect personal data (IP addresses, geolocations, search history, cookies, etc.). This information can therefore be abused for selling purposes. Although Private Search Protection is not a piece of malware, it nonetheless should be removed from your system. Follow our guide below to do so.

How Private Search Protection infected your computer

Users may accidentally visit pages that offer to install some “useful” extensions or programs. Redirects to such pages are usually promoted through dubious ads, buttons, or links displayed on third-party websites. Some cybercriminals promote fake software installers or updates (e.g., for Adobe Flash Player) that contain malware or unwanted software and trick inexperienced users into downloading/installing it. Also, browser hijackers are often distributed through freeware installers. Such installers usually hide additional offers, often disguised as something “useful” or “worth having installed”. During the installation of the main program, the promotional offers get oftentimes skipped, essentially letting unwanted software like browser hijackers get installed without users’ consent. Many cybercriminals use the Pay-Per-Install (PPI) scheme, which brings money to the promoters upon each successful installation to make this scheme work in large volume. Always be careful downloading software from unofficial websites. Avoid various ads and notifications that want you to click on or download something. Some malicious pages are equipped with executable scripts that infiltrate a non-protected system in the background mode – therefore dodging detection by users. This is why it is important to download software only from official resources.

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

Remove Private Search Protection manually for free

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

Note: Private Search Protection can be installed as Google Chrome extension as Administrator (you may see Installed by enterprise policy 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 Private Search Protection from Control Panel or Applications

To start removing Private Search Protection you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different names – “Private Search Protection”. 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 Private Search Protection from Windows XP:

1. Click on Start button.
2. Choose Control Panel.
3. Click Add or Remove Programs.
4. Find Private Search Protection or other suspicious program.
5. Click Uninstall.

Remove Private Search Protection from Windows 7:

1. Click Start button.
2. Then go to Control Panel.
3. Click Uninstall a Program.
4. Find Private Search Protection or other suspicious program and click Uninstall.

Remove Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection or other suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove Private Search Protection from Windows 10:

There are 2 ways to uninstall Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection or other suspicious program in the list.
4. Click on it and then click Uninstall button above.

Remove Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection from Mac:

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

Cannot uninstall Private Search Protection in Windows

In some cases, Private Search Protection won’t uninstall and gives you the message, that “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Private Search Protection. Please, contact your system administrator” when you try to remove it from Control Panel or “Access denied” error when removing the Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection or other suspicious program

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

Cannot uninstall Private Search Protection in MacOS

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

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

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

Uninstalling Private Search Protection 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 the Private Search Protection extension from your browsers manually.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://extensions.
3. Find Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection from Internet Explorer, please, perform instructions for uninstalling the program from Control Panel. To disable Private Search Protection, 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 Private Search Protection or other suspicious extensions.
6. Also disable other suspicious extensions from the list.

Opera Browser:

Generally, Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection or other suspicious extensions.
4. Click Uninstall button.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Private Search Protection installs a search engine (private.search-protection.com), 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.

Alternative way to remove adware browser extensions and reset browser settings

For safe and effective browser extension removal use avast! Browser Cleanup utility. Run it with administrator privileges and remove all extensions with bad rating including related to Private Search Protection. You can also reset your browser settings for each of your browsers: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox.

Download Avast Browser Cleanup

Cleaning browsers shortcuts

You can clean your browser shortcuts manually right-clicking on your browser icon, choosing “Properties” and removing hijacker address from “Target” field (leave just the path to your browser). However it is easier to use free Shortcut Cleaner from BleepingComputer. Download it here – its FREE:

Download Shortcut Cleaner

How to protect from threats, like Private Search Protection, in future


SpyHunter 5 Dashboard

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SpyHunter 5 System Guard

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs like Private Search Protection 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 Private Search Protection.

Download WiperSoft Antispyware

Download Combo Cleaner for Mac