What is it
Software Reporter Tool is a Google browser tool whose main function is to Browser Cleaning. It should not be confused with other similar tools such as Chrome Cleanup Tool and Removal Tool. One of its characteristics is that it analyzes your computer and runs once a week. The full scan can take less than half an hour. This Google Chrome utility removes programs that can cause malfunctions, display unwanted ads, create new home pages, trigger problems, and other unwanted consequences.
Therefore, it can help you browse the internet more easily and safely. To do this, search our team looking for problems that may affect you and then inform Google so that this is the one who asks you to remove a program that affects its proper functioning. In this way, by paying attention to this tool, you will be able to solve some frequent problems, although it may also be that, for some reason, you are not interested in removing the indicated program.
How does it work
This is a process that is turn on when starting the Chrome browser, which is used to clean the browser itself. Your main task is remove third-party programs which lead to issues like crashes, unwanted ads, invasive pop-ups, and more. Everything that affects your user experience can be easily eliminated knowing what is happening.
To do this, he makes a hard drive scan from the computer by sending information to the company’s servers for it to analyze the data. Once the appropriate checks have been made, it will ask you to delete a program. If you see it necessary, being recommended in many cases, you will do it so that your browser works better or gets rid of unnecessary problems. The best thing is that you pay attention to the tool if you have it enabled, although it will depend on you.
How it affects our team
If your team has high resources and is not affected by the tool, you will find it very interesting, however if not, you may find yourself with performance issues, because in addition to the aforementioned security functions it has a downside. It consumes computer resources frequently, especially those of the processor, so on more limited computers they may experience slowness or performance-related issues. Therefore, disabling it can help you, if it is your case, to free up team resources so that it works more smoothly.
If your computer is old or not very powerful, it will be much more affected, because it consumes a lot of processor resources. However, current and more powerful teams may find it more interesting to keep it because they will find a good use in this process. Therefore, how it harms your computer will actually depend more on the computer itself than on the process itself. You have to assess whether it is convenient for you to keep it or, on the contrary, it is better to eliminate it, based on its benefits and your needs.
How to eliminate
Once you know what it is, how it works, what its advantages are and how it can harm your computer, you are interested in knowing if you should eliminate it or not. There are several reasons why you may be interested in getting rid of this Google Chrome security system, although if you have come this far it is because you want not to have it because it consumes certain resources of your system, such as memory or CPU, and it looks affected the behavior of your team.
If this is the case, or if you are concerned about your Privacy, you may want to consider blocking it, in which case we will tell you how to do it. There are several ways to do this, so we will tell you which ones so that you can choose the one that is easier or more interesting for you, although the simplest and most common are the first. If one does not suit you, you can try another.
From Chrome settings
You can disable it from the browser’s own settings. You just have to go to Settings, in the 3-point menu in the upper right corner, and click Advanced Settings. You will come to the option Reset and clean. Uncheck the setting that indicates “Report details to Google about harmful software, system settings, and processes found on your computer during cleanup.”
You may also be interested in knowing the Privacy and security option. You will come across safe browsing options such as Standard or Enhanced Protection. You can click without protection, although it is not the most recommended option by the browser. There you will find an advanced configuration.
With file permissions
You can also do it by resorting to the use permissions, in which case you must do the following:
- Go to% localappdata% google chrome User Data SwReporter 88.253.200 (C: UsersUsernameAppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser DataSwReporter)
- Right click on software_reporter_tool.exe
- Go to Properties
- In Security, click Edit
- Advanced Options
- Click on disable inheritance
- Give to remove all permissions
- Remove all groups and users from the list
You may need to disable the option to inheritance in file and remove the object’s permissions from the Advanced menu. You just have to go to the security tab and go to the option Advanced. This will block all access to the file so that no user on the system can run it.
If you can’t remove the permissions, if you give Deny in the list of permissions for all users will be done, but will be reinstalled when upgrading to newer versions.
Deleting the software_reporter_tool.exe file
One way to do it is remove your executableAlthough it is a temporary solution since it will appear again when the browser is updated to another version.
- Open Notepad and click the Open menu.
- Navigate to the path:% localappdata% google chrome User Data SwReporter 88.253.200.
- The data folder will open.
- Select all files from the open menu.
- Choose software_reporter_tool.exe from the list and click Open.
- Select All (Ctrl + A) and delete the contents of the file.
- Save the file.
- You can also delete the contents of the entire folder.
With Chrome policies
To do this you just have to go to Run and regedit. The Registry editor. You must go to ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPolicies
- Under Policies, go to Google Chrome. If these folders do not exist you will have to create them.
- In the Chrome folder, right-click and New. Create the DWORD (32-bit) value: ChromeCleanupEnabled.
- Indicates 0 to disable the tool. If you want to re-enable it, you must indicate 1.
- Create another value with the name: ChromeCleanupReportingEnabled. Give 0 to disable the reporting function, or 1 if you want to re-enable it.
On Windows networks
You can disable this option on your computers connected to the network with the Windows registry or with group policy, we will tell you how to do it step by step.
- You will have to to download Google policy templates.
- Later, you have to unzip the file.
- Then copy Google.admx and Chrome.admx to the C: WindowsPolicyDefinitions folder.
- Copy Google.adml and Chrome.adml from en-us folder to C: WindowsPolicyDefinitions en-us
- Open the group policy editor (Run -> gpedit.msc).
- You will find the new Google policies in: Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Google, Google Chrome.
- In Google Chrome, find and disable: Enable Chrome cleanup on Windows.
If you want to do it on the server Active Directory, you have to copy the files in the folder: C: WindowsSYSVOLsysvolDomainNamePoliciesPolicyDefinitions.