The Safesearchmac.com as your homepage should not be underestimated, because the reason for its appearance within your internet browser is a potentially unwanted application (PUA) from the category of hijackers that has been installed onto your machine without your consent. The hijacker infection can bring a security risk to your MAC system. So, do not ignore it! Of course, the Safesearchmac.com is just a web page, but the hijacker uses it to redirect your browser onto intrusive web-sites, even without your permission and desire to see it. The Safesearchmac.com as your home page or search engine can be just the beginning, because your computer is hijacked by potentially unwanted software, so the amount of problems with your internet browser in the future may increase.
While redirecting, your web-browser’s status bar may show the following messages: ‘Waiting for Safesearchmac.com’, ‘Transferring data from Safesearchmac.com’, ‘Looking up Safesearchmac.com’, ‘Read Safesearchmac.com’, ‘Connected to Safesearchmac.com’.
The Safesearchmac.com hijacker will alter your web-browser’s search provider so that all searches are sent via Safesearchmac.com, that redirects to Bing, Yahoo or Google Custom Search engine which shows the search results for your query. The devs behind this hijacker are utilizing legitimate search provider as they may make revenue from the advertisements that are opened in the search results.
We recommend you to free your computer of hijacker infection immediately. Use the few simple steps below which will allow to remove Safesearchmac.com search and unwanted apps, which can be installed onto your machine along with it.
How to remove Safesearchmac.com from Chrome, Firefox, Safari
In the guidance below we will have a look at the hijacker and how to remove Safesearchmac.com from Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Chrome web browsers for Mac, natively or by using a few free removal utilities. Some of the steps below will require you to close this webpage. So, please read the guidance carefully, after that bookmark or print it for later reference.
To remove Safesearchmac.com, complete the steps below:
- How to remove Safesearchmac.com startpage without any software
- How to remove Safesearchmac.com with free applications
- How to stop Safesearchmac.com
- Prevent Safesearchmac.com hijacker from installing
- Finish words
How to remove Safesearchmac.com startpage without any software
Read this section to know how to manually remove the Safesearchmac.com hijacker infection. Even if the few simple steps does not work for you, there are several free malicious software removers below which can easily handle such hijackers.
Remove potentially unwanted software using the Finder
Some of potentially unwanted applications, adware and browser hijacker can be removed using the Move to Trash tool which can be found in the Finder. So, if you’re running any version of Mac and you have noticed an unwanted program, then first try to delete it through the Finder.
- Open the Finder.
- Click “Applications”.
- It will display a list of all programs installed on the MAC system.
- Scroll through the all list, and remove questionable and unknown software. Pay maximum attention to the application you installed last.
- Drag the dubious application from the Applications folder to the Trash.
- Empty Trash.
Get rid of Safesearchmac.com startpage from Safari
If you find that Safari web-browser settings like startpage, default search engine and new tab page having been hijacked, then you may revert back your settings, via the reset internet browser process.
Click Safari menu and choose “Preferences”.
It will open the Safari Preferences window. Next, click the “Extensions” tab. Look for unknown and suspicious extensions on left panel, select it, then click the “Uninstall” button. Most important to remove all unknown extensions from Safari.
Once complete, click “General” tab. Change the “Default Search Engine” to Google.
Find the “Homepage” and type into textfield “https://www.google.com”.
Remove Safesearchmac.com from Mozilla Firefox
Resetting your Mozilla Firefox is basic troubleshooting step for any issues with your web-browser program, including the reroute to Safesearchmac.com web-page. It’ll keep your personal information like browsing history, bookmarks, passwords and web form auto-fill data.
First, open the Mozilla Firefox. Next, press the button in the form of three horizontal stripes (
). It will display the drop-down menu. Next, click the Help button (
).
In the Help menu click the “Troubleshooting Information”. In the upper-right corner of the “Troubleshooting Information” page click on “Refresh Firefox” button as displayed on the screen below.
Confirm your action, click the “Refresh Firefox”.
Delete Safesearchmac.com from Google Chrome
Reset Chrome settings is a easy way to remove the hijacker, harmful and adware extensions, as well as to restore the internet browser’s new tab page, start page and search provider by default that have been modified by browser hijacker infection.
- First run the Chrome and press Menu button (small button in the form of three dots).
- It will display the Google Chrome main menu. Select More Tools, then click Extensions.
- You will see the list of installed extensions. If the list has the extension labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following tutorial: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
- Now open the Google Chrome menu once again, click the “Settings” menu.
- You will see the Google Chrome’s settings page. Scroll down and click “Advanced” link.
- Scroll down again and click the “Reset” button.
- The Chrome will display the reset profile settings page as shown on the image above.
- Next press the “Reset” button.
- Once this process is complete, your internet browser’s new tab page, default search engine and homepage will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the post How to reset Chrome settings to default.
How to remove Safesearchmac.com with free applications
There are not many good free anti malware programs with high detection ratio. The effectiveness of malware removal utilities depends on various factors, mostly on how often their virus/malware signatures DB are updated in order to effectively detect modern malicious software, adware, browser hijackers and other PUPs. We recommend to use several programs, not just one. These programs which listed below will allow you remove all components of the hijacker from your disk and system folders and thereby remove Safesearchmac.com redirect.
How to automatically remove Safesearchmac.com with MalwareBytes Free
You can remove Safesearchmac.com search automatically with a help of MalwareBytes Free. We suggest this free malware removal tool because it can easily delete hijackers, adware, potentially unwanted apps and toolbars with all their components such as files, folders and registry entries.
MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM) can be downloaded from the following link.
20842 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: September 10, 2020
Once downloading is finished, close all software and windows on your machine. Run the saved file. Follow the prompts.
The MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM) will automatically start and you can see its main screen as displayed in the following example.
Now click the “Scan” button to find browser hijacker which cause a redirect to Safesearchmac.com webpage. While the MalwareBytes program is scanning, you may see number of objects it has identified as threat.
After MalwareBytes has finished scanning your MAC, the results are displayed in the scan report. All found threats will be marked. You can delete them all by simply press “Remove Selected Items” button. The MalwareBytes will remove browser hijacker responsible for redirecting your internet browser to Safesearchmac.com site and add threats to the Quarantine.
How to stop Safesearchmac.com
If you browse the Internet, you can’t avoid malicious advertising. But you can protect your browser against it. Download and run an ad blocker program. AdGuard is an ad-blocker which can filter out a lot of of the malvertising, blocking dynamic scripts from loading malicious content.
Visit the page linked below to download the latest version of AdGuard for Mac OS.
3677 downloads
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: January 17, 2018
Once downloading is finished, run the downloaded file. The “Setup Wizard” window will show up on the computer screen.
Follow the prompts. AdGuard will then be installed. A window will show up asking you to confirm that you want to see a quick instructions. Press “Skip” button to close the window and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick instructions that will allow you get to know AdGuard better.
Each time, when you start your machine, AdGuard will run automatically and block advertisements, web-sites such as Safesearchmac.com, as well as other harmful or misleading web-sites.
Prevent Safesearchmac.com hijacker from installing
A browser hijackers may be spread with the help of trojan horses and other forms of malware, but most often, the browser hijacker such as Safesearchmac.com spreads along with certain free programs. Many makers of free applications include bundled software in their setup package. Sometimes it is possible to avoid the setup of any hijackers like Safesearchmac.com: carefully read the Terms of Use and the Software license, select only Manual, Custom or Advanced installation type, unset all checkboxes before clicking Install or Next button while installing new free applications.
Finish words
Now your computer should be free of the hijacker which made to redirect your web browser to the Safesearchmac.com web page. We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you block unwanted pop-up ads and unwanted harmful web sites) and MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM) (to periodically scan your MAC for new hijackers and other malware).
If you are still having problems while trying to delete Safesearchmac.com from the Safari, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, then ask for help in our Spyware/Malware removal forum.
