Search Protect Will Not Uninstall, Costmin Won't Stay Away, and Free Soft Today Keeps Showing Up?

Question

Basically, Costmin is still showing up in my Chrome browser extensions every time I restart the computer, Free Soft Today keeps re-installing, and Search Protect will not let me uninstall it without "administrator privileges".

The extension called "Costmin" is showing up in my Chrome browser constantly. I've deleted it from my extensions, but it still comes back almost every time I restart the computer. It's not something I can find on my "uninstall/change a program" list, so the only time I see it is under tools on Chrome.

Another program, which has been showing up under a variety of spellings, called "Free Soft Today" is also appearing in my start menu as well as my programs list, I've gone through and uninstalled everything in my programs that I do not recognize, including Free Soft Today, which always seems to come back.

There's also a program listed called "Search Protect" (this does not show up in my browser). Now, every time I look something up about how to get rid of "Search Protect", everybody just says to uninstall it. When I try to, it tells me that I don't have administrator privileges. I've restarted in safe mode and have tried uninstalling it that way, and it didn't let me there, either. I've run a full scan on my Microsoft Security Essentials, and it told me that there was a trojan and a malware (called costmin), and I removed them. However, everything is still the same.
All of these programs have showed up around the same time a few weeks ago.

Answer 1

I have the same problem with Costmin reappearing everytime I restart my browser (Chrome) but I finally found a solution.



In order to get rid of Costmin for good, first hit three stripe thingy and go to settings. Then click "extensions" and check off developer mode. Something similar to "loaded from something blah blah" should appear under Costmin. Copy from C:\ and onward & open your local disk. In the long field, paste url in and delete it. Don't forget to delete the outside folder as well. Then restart Chrome, costmin shouldn't appear anymore. At least for me it didn't.

I hope this help others who are experiencing the same problems. Those ads were so annoying 8))

No need to download anything, this should also work for those others extensions similar to costmin as well

Answer 2

Videos on YouTube show you how to manually/permanently remove the programs. According to the Cosmin video, Cosmin is disguised as a virus. FreeSoftToday could be, too, as it keeps re-installing itself.



Before following the FreeSoftToday removal instructions, you will have to download FreeFixer, which is the software that one of the YouTube users uses to remove programs like that.



Speaking of the fact that you don't have "administrative privileges", there is a hidden administrator account called "Administrator". It is a "safe mode only" account, so here are the instructions on how to get to it and make yourself an "Administrator".



1. Restart your computer



2. As your computer boots up, hold down the F8 button.



3. You will be brought to a screen that asks you which mode you want to start in.



4. Select "Safe Mode"



5. You are gonna have a load of codes running down your screen, before eventually your computer completely boots in Safe Mode.



6. Click on the "Administrator" account. (if it asks for a password, I will have to scurry through Yahoo! Answers in order to help you)



7. Once you are on the "Administrator" account, open the Start menu and open the Control Panel".



8. Select "User Accounts".



9. Select "Change an account" (says that on XP, not sure about any other system).



10. Click on your account, and make yourself an administrator with the following steps:



1. Click on "Change the account type"

2. Select "Administrator", and then click "Change Account Type".



11. Once you are done with that, restart your computer.



12. Let your computer boot up into the normal Windows system (you will not have to repeat steps 2-4 to do this).



13. If there is only one account, you will be signed in to your account automatically. If there are multiple accounts, then it will bring you to the "Welcome" screen.



Make sure you are in a secure area where no one can see you as you do the steps.



The links are listed in the "Source" section.



Thanks for posting. This answer was a time consumer for me to type up and post.

Answer 3

You can try to uninstall them in safe mode. To enter in safe mode, restart your computer, keep tapping F8 key before Windows loads. If you have problem in fixing your problem, feel free to ask help from volunteers with computer skills.

Answer 4

Hi

Search Protect is malware.



Download and run the following...

Download Malwarebytes

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/malwarebytes-anti-malware/

AdwCleaner

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/dl/125/

HitManPro

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/hitmanpro/

SuperAntiSpyware free

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/superantispyware_free.html

CCleaner

http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner

Answer 5

Run AdwCleaner, Junkware Removal Tool, and Malwarebytes Antimalware. Using all 3 should remove your issues.



http://bleepingcomputer.com/download/AdwCleaner/

http://bleepingcomputer.com/download/junkware-removal-tool/

http://malwarebytes.org

Answer 6

Hi,

You can download Total Unistall here: http://bit.ly/1k3BrzN

Try it out