How to remove Safe.search.tools

What is Safe.search.tools

Safe.search.tools is a search domain that may replace your default search settings due to some unwanted software installed on your PC. Such capabilities are inherent in browser hijackers – usually small applications or browser add-ons designed to generate revenue by promoting their own changes. They do so by redirecting all search queries through the newly-assigned address, and also by displaying various ads sponsored by third parties. It is also worth mentioning that browser hijackers often promote fake search engines that cannot make their own results. Instead, developers tend to employ already popular engines like Google or Yahoo to generate fake traffic of queries. A browser hijacker that pinned “Safe.search.tools” instead of your default address could also take care of making these changes irreversible. This means you may not be able to reset your settings through the traditional methods. Note that Safe.search.tools is only one of many search engines promoted by hijackers. There can be many other hijackers with similar domain names like “safesearch.net” and so forth. If you spotted a suspicious change similar to what we described above, we recommend you read our guide and learn how to get rid of such changes along with a piece of unwanted software that caused them.

How Safe.search.tools infected your computer

Browser hijackers and other potentially unwanted software is often promoted along with other program installers. They can be disguised as tools meant to enhance browsing features and provide an ostensibly better user experience. The most common installers containing unwanted offers are pirated, cracked, or simply freeware downloaded from unofficial resources. It is sometimes possible to avert such installations by being more careful and checking additional sections (“Advanced”, “Custom”, etc.) to deselect extra offers. Ignoring them and leaving them as they are will almost inevitably lead to their installation without your consent leaving confusion about where they came from. Another popular branch of spreading various infections is fake updates or installers of Adobe Flash Player. There are pages claiming this software is outdated to trick inexperienced users into believing and therefore running the installer. Do not do this and download software only from reliable and legitimate sources. We also encourage you to read our guide below for more practical tips on how to protect yourself against such threats in the future.

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

Remove SearchTools manually for free

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

Note: SearchTools 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 SearchTools from Control Panel or Applications

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

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

Remove SearchTools from Windows 7:

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

Remove SearchTools 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 SearchTools or other suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove SearchTools from Windows 10:

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

Remove SearchTools 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 SearchTools 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 SearchTools from Mac:

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

Cannot uninstall SearchTools in Windows

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

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

Cannot uninstall SearchTools in MacOS

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

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

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

Uninstalling SearchTools 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 SearchTools extension from your browsers manually.

Google Chrome:

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

Opera Browser:

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

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

SearchTools installs a search engine (topsearch.co), 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 SearchTools. 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 SearchTools, in future


SpyHunter 5 Dashboard

SpyHunter 5 Results

SpyHunter 5 System Guard

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs like SearchTools 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 SearchTools.

Download SpyHunter for Windows

Download SpyHunter for Mac