How to Remove Covenant Eyes Forcefully

Greg Greenleaf | August 9, 2013

(Above image obtained from covenanteyes.com)

How to Remove Covenant Eyes Forcefully

nternet filters are used for a variety of reasons. Many schools and corporate settings use them to keep kids and employees off of unapproved websites or may simply want a better picture of the internet surfing trends. At home, families are installing it to keep marriages

honest and questionable content from streaming over their networks. Sometimes though, internet filtering software is unwanted (some more than others). You may have purchased a used computer that came pre-loaded with it, or maybe the password has been forgotten and its just a piece of dead weight on your system. This article isnt intended to destroy marriages or enable kids to sneak by. The same methods I use below can also be tweaked to better secure against such bypasses. Furthermore, these tactics have only been tested on the Covenant Eyes accountability software and on my particular computer. Any failure on other software is out of the scope of this articleand theres no guarantee it will work in either case! This just gives you a place to start (but hopefully it works).

Software needed (versions and links were current as of this writing):

ZSoft Uninstaller 2.5 Portable (http://zsoft.dk/downloads/ZSoft_Uninstaller_2.5_Portable.zip) Unlocker 1.9.0 Portable (http://usfiles.brothersoft.com/utilities/system_utilities/unlocker1.9.0portable.zip) Ccleaner 4.04 Portable (https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/portable//downloadfile) Administrative privileges for both the above software as well as an elevated Windows Command Prompt. Not an administrator of your PC? Ask you best hacker buddy or scour the internet for how to force administrative privilege.

How to Remove Covenant Eyes Forcefully

Steps to freedom:
1. Open the Windows Task Manager. There are several ways to do this, but I prefer to just press the keyboard combination "Ctrl + Alt + Del" (without the plus sign, of course). Look under the "Processes" tab and close all instances of Covenant Eyes. You'll want to right-click on the instance and select "End Process Tree". Do this for all instances.

2. Open up your copy of ZSoft Uninstaller 2.5 Portable. Under the "Installed Programs" tab, find Covenant Eyes and select it with a single left-click. Press the "Uninstall" button above and an uninstall program should begin. With Covenant Eyes, as you may already know, a password is required to remove the program. From here, you'll want to cancel the uninstallation wizard.

3. However, the ZSoft program will now display an option to search for "leftovers" for the program. Select Covenant Eyes with a double-click and a new window will pop up. Click "Next". ZSoft will then scan your hard drive for any lingering traces of Covenant Eyes, as well as the system registry. When it's finished, you'll want to select everything that it finds and delete them. You're now finished with ZSoft. The program keeps a logged record of how it affected the system registry, just in case something went wrong.

4. Now, you'll need to manually check your hard drive for traces of Covenant Eyes (because seeing is believing, in this case!). If you have a 64-bit edition of Windows 7, you'll want to check for "Covenant Eyes" or "CE" in both your "Program Files" directory and your "Program Files (x86)" directory. Locations may vary in other operating system editions, so you might have to do a little digging. Here are the folders that I checked on my computer (keep in mind that this is my specific machine):

How to Remove Covenant Eyes Forcefully

C:\Program Files <--------- then check all subfolders C:\Program Files (x86) <--------- then check all subfolders C:\ProgramData <--------- then check all subfolders C:\Users\Paco\AppData\ <--------- then check all subfolders C:\Users\Default\AppData\ <--------- then check all subfolders

Advanced users may also wish to manually check the system registry for traces of Covenant Eyes. I checked: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software HKEY_USERS\ <--------- in each subfolder (which are user accounts), you can check their "Software" subfolder (which is the software under that account) and look for Covenant Eyes. Important: If you're messing with the registry, make sure your files are backed up and you could even backup a copy of your registry to be safe.

5. If you find any remaining files, or if the files are locked to prevent deletion, you'll need to force the file deletion yourself or with 3rd party programs. For this set of instructions, I used Unlocker. File Assassin is another kill tool, but it couldn't take care of everything I needed it to. Everything you find related to Covenant Eyes in the digging you do will need to be deleted. Unlocker will enable you to navigate to both files and folders for you to eradicate. It will also most likely tell you to restart the computer to lock in the changes. You may also be prompted to have Unlocker schedule a boot-time delete, and this is normal, so be sure to agree. But don't restart the computer until your do one more thing...

How to Remove Covenant Eyes Forcefully

6. Open up Ccleaner. It opens up to "Cleaner" by default, which is what we want. You'll notice two tabs entitled "Windows" and "Applications". Most of the default things checked is all we'll need, but double check everthing in both tabs to ensure that nothing is wrongfully cleaned. You might even add a few more selections, but I would recommend leaving the defaults if you aren't familiar with this type of software. Go ahead and click on "Run Cleaner" at the bottom corner of the program and let it do its thing. Ccleaner will give you a nice report when it is finished. You'll then want to navigate to the "Registry" tab of the program (to your left). Leave everthing checked and click "Scan for Issues". When it is finished, you'll be able to "Fix selected issues...". Agree to make a backup copy of your registry and save the file somewhere you'll remember easily. Then click it again to permanently clean the registry of those seleted files.

7. Go ahead and restart your computer now. You've made a dirty mess of things and restarting the computer is like taking a shower. When it boots back in, there's still one more thing to do. Go and grab a drink or fold some laundry to give your computer a minute to fully load up.

8. Go into your start menu and in the search box type in "cmd". When the program shows in the list of available programs, right-click on it and "Run as administrator". The location of this program varies with each operating system; some may be access within the start menu, by digging through some system folders, or pinned in other locations. It's called the Command Prompt - in Linux, it's called a Terminal. You'll know when you've opened it because it will be a small, black window that pops up and allows you to enter text commands into it. Get there.

9. Type this command (without the quotation marks): "netsh winsock reset catalog". This will reset the winsock entries and you'll need to restart your computer after the task says

How to Remove Covenant Eyes Forcefully

that it is finished. When the computer boots in again, try to open your internet browser to your favorite website. You should be good to go now, thanks for trying out my tutorial!

Troubleshooting:
- Is your browser still unable to connect? Try typing another command into the Command Prompt (just like above): "netsh int ip reset reset.log hit". This will reset your TCP/IP stack and you'll need to restart your computer after the task says that it is finished.

- STILL not working? A. You may have a problem in some other area of your hardware or software, or a combination of a host of other issues. B. This tutorial may just not work for your specific machine or you may not have high enough administrative elevation. C. If you're using a filtered computer under the watchful eye of an accountability partner, try installing a hidden key logger program to obtain the password needed to uninstall the program. D. If all else fails, I would just copy all important files from the computer and do a fresh operating system installation to get rid of it. E. If you're behind a protected router or firewall, you'll have to hack the hardware or proxy your way through it. F. You could also use a program such as Tor Browser Bundle to discreetly move in and out of internet filter traffic, but beware: this kind of software is suspicious to ISP's and filtering organizations, so they or your accountability partner may notice the unusual traffic and ask you where it is coming from.

How to Remove Covenant Eyes Forcefully

G. Use a live CD that runs at boot-time and from the system memory to avoid booting into an operating system with internet filtering software. A quick internet search should inform you of the most popular and free live OS discs for download. H. The internet is your best friend: use it, because there are people in it who have succeeded in what you're trying to do.

Disclaimer: Covenant Eyes is an effective accountability and internet filtering software and serves many great purposes. I personally use this product at home and only provide this tutorial as a means to both rid your computer of unwanted software and to better understand the vulnerabilities in your wanted software. In both cases, I am assuming that you are a user with administrative access to the computer and that the motive for you using this resource is ethical. I am not responsible for damage to your system or to your software. I am also not responsible for destroyed relationships, as a result of someone that needs accountability, for not having it. I am not affiliated with Covenant Eyes and Im not getting any kick-backs for doing this. This article may or may not be updated with future releases of Covenant Eyesit depends on how lazy I am. With that saidhave fun! I would also encourage you to offer a small donation to the companies that made the software you used in this tutorial. I dont work for them, but I know it takes a lot of time and resources to produce quality software. Thanks!