What is Chromesearch.win?

Chromesearch.win is another alias of famous browser hijacker, that resembles standard Google Chrome startup page and modifies search engine and homepage settings. It mostly attacks Google Chrome, but sometimes can be seen in Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. This website redirects user queries to google.com, but collects search and browsing history and sells it to third-party advertising companies. Chromesearch.win is often accompanied with extensions, that control the settings and don’t allow the user to revert the changes. Malware also uses Windows Group Policies to prevent the user from modifying search engine and homepage. As this website poses a certain danger to your privacy and online security we recommend you to remove Chromesearch.win and restore default settings.

chromesearch.win hijacker

How Chromesearch.win gets on your PC?

Chromesearch.win and extensions or programs, that can install this hijacker in the browser are often bundled with legal freeware applications or pirated software. Option to set-up Chromesearch.win as default search engine or install an unwanted extension in browsers is often hidden under “Custom” installation options or in the text of license agreement. Unfortunately, standard antivirus protection like Microsoft Defender, Norton, Avast, AVG, Kaspersky are not able to detect or effectively remove Chromesearch.win. The special type of programs is designed to fight against such threats, that is called anti-malware. Among best anti-malware products on the market are Norton and Norton.

How to remove Chromesearch.win from your computer?

To uninstall Chromesearch.win remove it from Control Panel, then delete all files and reg keys.

In our view, there are 3 products that potentially have Chromesearch.win in their database. You can try to use them for removing Chromesearch.win.

Recommended Solution:

Norton is a powerful removal tool. It can remove all instances of newest viruses, similar to Chromesearch.win – files, folders, registry keys.

 

Download Norton*Trial version of Norton provides detection of computer viruses for FREE. To remove malware, you have to purchase the full version of Norton.

Alternative Solution:

Norton Antivirus – detects files, registry values and folders of viruses that show the same behavior as Chromesearch.win.

 

Download Norton
 

You can try both of these products to remove Chromesearch.win

Or uninstall Chromesearch.win manually.

Step 1: Remove Chromesearch.win from Control Panel

Windows XP:

  1. Click Start.
  2. Control Panel.
  3. Then click Add or Remove Programs.
  4. Find Chromesearch.win (search for other unknown and suspicious programs).
  5. Click Uninstall.

Learn more about uninstallation of programs in Windows XP.

Windows 7/Windows Vista:

  1. Click Start.
  2. Then Control Panel.
  3. Click Uninstall a Program.
  4. Find Chromesearch.win (search for other unknown and suspicious programs) and click Uninstall.

Learn more about uninstallation of programs in Windows 7.

Windows 8/Windows 8.1:

  1. Open the Menu.
  2. Click Search.
  3. After that click Apps.
  4. Then Control Panel.
  5. Then as in Windows 7, click Uninstall a Program under Programs.
  6. Find Chromesearch.win (search for other unknown and suspicious programs), select it and click Uninstall.

Learn more about uninstallation of programs in Windows 8 (8.1).

Windows 10:

  1. Click on the Start button (or press the Windows key) to open the Start menu, click on the Settings at the top.
  2. Click on App & features on the left menu.
  3. On the right side, locate Chromesearch.win (search for other unknown and suspicious programs) and click it, then click on the Uninstall button.
  4. Click on Uninstall to confirm.

Learn more about uninstallation of programs in Windows 10

Note: If you can’t find required program, sort programs by date in Control panel and search for last installed programs.

After that remove Chromesearch.win from your browser.

Step 2: Remove Chromesearch.win from browsers

To be able to remove Chromesearch.win from the browser you need to remove Windows Group Policies created by this hijacker. To do this you can download following BAT file from our website:

remove chrome group policies

Download BAT file to remove Group Policies

or perform following instructions:

  1. Start Command Prompt as Administrator
  2. To do this in Windows 10/8 or Windows 7 click Start and in the search box type cmd. Right-click on the found result and choose Run as Administrator.
  3. While in command prompt type:
    rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers"
    Press Enter button.
  4. Then type:
    rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy"
    Press Enter button.
  5. Finally, type:
    gpupdate /force
    Press Enter button.

Step 3: Remove Chromesearch.win from browsers

Google Chrome:

  1. Open Google Chrome
  2. Push Alt + F.
  3. Click Tools.
  4. Choose Extensions.
  5. Find Chromesearch.win.
  6. Click the trash can icon to remove it.

Learn more about removing extensions from Chrome.

Mozilla Firefox:

  1. Open Firefox.
  2. Push Shift + Ctrl + A.
  3. Choose Chromesearch.win.
  4. Click Disable or Remove button.

Learn more about removing extensions from Firefox.

Internet Explorer:

  1. Open IE.
  2. Push Alt + T.
  3. Click Manage Add-ons.
  4. Select Toolbars and Extensions.
  5. Click Disable Chromesearch.win.
  6. Click More information link in the left-bottom corner.
  7. Click Remove button.
  8. If this button is grayed out – perform alternative steps.

Learn more about removing extensions from IE.

Step 4: Resetting your browser search and homepage settings

Reset browser setting in Google Chrome:
  1. Click the Chrome menu (3 bar button) in the top right corner.
  2. Choose Settings.
  3. Click Show advanced settings.
  4. Go to Reset browser settings section.
  5. Click Reset browser settings.
  6. In the dialog that appears, click Reset.

Learn more about resetting browser settings in Google Chrome.

Reset browser setting in Mozilla Firefox:
  1. Open Mozilla Firefox.
  2. Go to Help.
  3. Go to Troubleshooting information.
  4. Click Reset Firefox… button.

Learn more about resetting browser settings in Mozilla Firefox.

Reset browser setting in Internet Explorer:
  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. Click on the cogwheel in the right upper corner.
  3. Click Internet options.
  4. Go to Advanced tab.
  5. Click Reset button.
  6. Put a tick near Delete personal settings checkbox.
  7. Click Reset button.

Learn more about resetting browser settings in Internet Explorer.

Step 5: Remove following files and folders of Chromesearch.win:

Remove following regitry entries:

no information

Remove following files:

no information

Remove following folders

no information

Information provided by: Alexey Abalmasov

34 Comments

    • Hey,

      thanks for your article. For me, nothing worked so far (uninstalling software – it did not show up anywhere; I removed and installed Chrome; deleted entries from the registry that contained the “chromesearch.win” string), but removing the group policies did the trick.

      Thanks a lot!

  3. I was really nervous looking for a fix because a lot of other methods didn’t work. Normally, I wouldn’t leave a reply, but with the whole browser hijacker thing, I was super stressed out. I’m so glad your guide actually worked. Thank you so much for this, you don’t know how relieved I am to have chromesearch.win gone!

  4. Thank you very much!
    I have restored system after malware attack, except one little thing – the search in the address bar of Chrome. Nothing seemed to help because I was not able to change search engine in the Preferencies of browser. After removing Windows Group Policies it works perfectly.

  6. OMG!!!! i just can’t believe that this article solved my issue.
    I ran through scan using ESET, Kaspersky etc.. nothing was identifying this rat.
    After 6 hours of struggle this article saved me.
    “Aleksei Abalmasov” – You are rocking!!

  8. Thanks!!!!!!! removing the Windows Group policies was the only way I found to remove chromesearch from my default search engine in Chrome. Finally!!! It took me a while to find the right solution.

  9. It Worked!
    Thank you thank you thank you!
    I only needed to do the “Step 2: Remove Chromesearch.win from browsers”
    And I needed to execute it in “administrator mode”!
    Thanks agains!!!

  11. Wow , this work . It work for me although I only update the group policy and my problem is solve. It works like a a charm , thanks !!!!

  16. I wish this had worked for me as well…still searching for a solution. I wonder if the creators of the malware changed things so that this solution no longer works. Thanks for your effort anyway! Seems like it’s helped a lot of people, just not me.

  19. I’ve been looking endlessly for a solution to this problem.
    Thank you so much for providing this solution it really helped me.
    I can’t express how thankful I am with how you helped me.

    _Supporting from Asia

  24. I didn’t want to download and install any other software as I was very weary of these softwares(particularly related to viruses and malwares). I tried many other solutions such as removing the various directories, uninstalling Chrome and re-installing. None worked. It didn’t affect Firefox or Edge. It only affected Chrome. I couldn’t find the extension neither. BUT THIS SOLUTION WORKED GREAT!.. THANK YOU SO MUCH. By removing the group policy helped (I think), as I could not find any other steps useful. Chrome extension didn’t exist. Strange!

  26. Thanks a lot!
    Step 2 did the Job !
    OR you can just delete the file “Registry.pol” in the folder : “C:\WINDOWS\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine” and then run (with “Run as administrator” privileges) the “gpupdate /force” command.

  28. Finally a TRUE solution!!. I only needed to do the “Step 2: Remove Chromesearch.win from browsers”.
    Aleksei Abalmasov, you fucking smart guy :).

  29. Thanx bro malwarebytes then your group policy update works i m wondering how to remove that chromesearch.win redirect from google chrome.
    This is a 100% fix thanx for your help.

  32. I tried using the BAT file, everything said ‘Access denied.’

    Then I tried doing it manually, and I got the same thing… ‘Access denied.’

    I figured it was because I wasn’t running it as Administrator. The problem is, when you say: “Right-click on the found result and choose Run as Administrator”, there’s nothing there for me to actually ‘right-click’ on.

    Now I feel really stupid, because it seems like no one else in the comments had any of these issues.

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