Hi bob58

 

Welcome to the Community Forums.

 

From the research that I have done Vosteran Search is a non-malware program we commonly refer to as a PUA (Potentially Unwanted Application), which is promoted via other free downloads, and once on hyour system does, as you have noticed, change your browser homepage and default search engine to vosteran.com.

 

These are very annoying at best in that they cause pop-us, redirect your browser home page, and other behaviour that may slow down the computer and direct ads your way, but they are not actually doing anything bad like damaging files or stealing information. Often they are installed intentionally by you the user as browser add-ons for various tasks such as quick search tools. But they also come with the result of added annoying pop-ups and ads. Other times they 'piggy back' with other software that you installed, or try to 'sneak' onto your system entirely.

 

WSA does detect and remove many PUA's, and more are being added, but WSA does not detect all of them. A simple browser add-on with PUA behaviour that is easy to identify and easy to remove is not likely to be detected and removed by WSA. Those that are intentionally difficult to locate and remove are. Please see THIS LINK for more information regarding Webroot's stance on these annoying programs.

 

The best thing to do is to Open a Support Trouble Ticket and ask Webroot Support to take a look and remove these for you.  There is NO CHARGE for this for valid WSA license holder.

 

Also, we have had a lot of discussion regarding these recently, and one of our gurus @ has posted an Idea for Webroot to consider asking them to increase PUA detection.  The more users that need help removing a particular PUA the more likely and faster that PUA will be added to detection.

 

Well, I am hoping that the above is of assistance?  Please do let us know how you get on with this or if you have any further questions, etc.

 

Regards, Baldrick

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Thank you. I will open a support trouble ticket. This thing could drive me nuts.

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Hi bob58

 

No problem at all...you are most welcome.

 

The key things to note is that this mainly an annoyance and that you system should not be at risk of anythng other than...'annoyance', and also to check (i) always try to make sure that you download an app from the author's website or a website they specifically recommend & always check for innocuous looking 'additional' options when running the installler..it is those that most often give the PUA 'license' to 'annoy'.

 

Hope that you will stick around or drop by from time to time? ;)

 

And also remember to let us know the outcome of the Support Ticket...all such feedback is very useful to us in terms of confirming that we are providing the right advice going forward and into the future.

 

Regards, Baldrick

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