What is SystemSpecial?
SystemSpecial is a PUP (potentially unwanted program) belonging to the Adware family. What does Adware do? Adware is form of software that is created to insert advertising into your Web surfing or even desktop experience. Adware software can be created to alter your start page, search engine, search results, or even add toolbars to your internet browser. Adware software run in the background when you are online, and adware software can slow down your MAC system and affect its performance.
Unwanted ads
Does adware steal your data? The SystemSpecial adware can be used to gather confidential info about you that can be later used for marketing purposes. You do not know if your home address, account names and passwords are safe.
Threat Summary
| Name | SystemSpecial |
| Type | adware software, potentially unwanted application (PUA), popup virus, popup advertisements, popups |
| Symptoms |
|
| Removal | SystemSpecial removal guide |
How does the SystemSpecial adware get on your machine
Adware software may be spread with the help of trojan horses and other forms of malicious software, but most commonly, adware is bundled with some free applications. Many makers of free software include additional software in their installation package. Sometimes it’s possible to avoid the install of any adware software: carefully read the Terms of Use and the Software license, choose only Manual, Custom or Advanced installation type, uncheck all checkboxes before clicking Install or Next button while installing new free software.
Thus, the adware is quite dangerous. So, we suggest you remove it from your computer as quickly as possible. Follow the guidance presented below to remove SystemSpecial adware from the Safari, Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
How to Remove SystemSpecial adware
The answer is right here on this web page. We have put together simplicity and efficiency. It will allow you easily to clean your MAC system of SystemSpecial . Moreover, you can select manual or automatic removal way. If you’re familiar with the MAC system then use manual removal, otherwise use the free anti malware tool made specifically to delete adware. Of course, you can combine both methods. Read it once, after doing so, please bookmark this page (or open it on your smartphone) as you may need to shut down your web-browser or restart your MAC system.
To remove SystemSpecial, perform the following steps:
- Manual SystemSpecial adware removal
- Automatic Removal of SystemSpecial adware software
- How to stay safe online
- Finish words
Manual SystemSpecial adware removal
The most common adware software can be uninstalled manually, without the use of antivirus or other removal utilities. The manual steps below will allow you remove SystemSpecial step by step. Although each of the steps is easy and does not require special knowledge, but you doubt that you can complete them, then use the free utilities, a list of which is given below.
Remove adware through the Finder
First of all, check the list of installed applications on your machine and delete all unknown and recently installed applications. If you see an unknown application with incorrect spelling or varying capital letters, it have most likely been installed by malicious software and you should clean it off first with malware removal utility like MalwareBytes.
Open Finder and click “Applications”.
Very carefully look around the entire list of software installed on your Apple Mac. Most probably, one of them is the SystemSpecial adware software. If you have many programs installed, you can help simplify the search of malicious programs by sort the list by date of installation.
Once you have found a questionable, unwanted or unused application, right click to it and choose “Move to Trash”. Another method is drag the application from the Applications folder to the Trash.
Don’t forget, select Finder -> “Empty Trash”.
Remove SystemSpecial adware from Google Chrome
If your Chrome internet browser is affected by SystemSpecial, it may be necessary to completely reset your internet browser program to its default settings.
Open the Chrome menu by clicking on the button in the form of three horizontal dotes (
). It will display the drop-down menu. Choose More Tools, then click Extensions.
Carefully browse through 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 Google Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy otherwise, just go to the step below.
Open the Chrome main menu again, click to “Settings” option.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the “Advanced” link. Now scroll down until the Reset settings section is visible, as displayed on the image below and click the “Reset settings to their original defaults” button.
Confirm your action, click the “Reset” button.
Remove SystemSpecial from Mozilla Firefox by resetting browser settings
If the Mozilla Firefox web-browser program is hijacked by SystemSpecial, then resetting its settings can help. The Reset feature is available on all modern version of Firefox. A reset can fix many issues by restoring Firefox settings like search engine, new tab page and start page to their original settings. Essential information like bookmarks, browsing history, passwords, cookies, auto-fill data and personal dictionaries will not be removed.
First, launch the Mozilla Firefox and press 
button. It will display the drop-down menu on the right-part of the internet browser. Further, click the Help button (
) as displayed below.
In the Help menu, select the “Troubleshooting Information” option. Another way to open the “Troubleshooting Information” screen – type “about:support” in the browser adress bar and press Enter. It will show the “Troubleshooting Information” page as shown in the following example. In the upper-right corner of this screen, click the “Refresh Firefox” button.
It will show the confirmation dialog box. Further, click the “Refresh Firefox” button. The Mozilla Firefox will start a procedure to fix your problems that caused by the SystemSpecial adware. After, it’s finished, click the “Finish” button.
Remove SystemSpecial adware software from Safari
By resetting Safari internet browser you revert back your web-browser settings to its default state. This is basic when troubleshooting problems that might have been caused by SystemSpecial .
Click Safari menu and select “Preferences”.
It will open the Safari Preferences window. Next, click the “Extensions” tab. Look for unknown and suspicious addons on left panel, choose it, then click the “Uninstall” button. Most important to delete all unknown plugins 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”.
Automatic Removal of SystemSpecial adware software
In order to completely get rid of SystemSpecial, you not only need to remove adware software from your MAC, but also remove all its components in your computer including system folders. We recommend to download and use free removal utilities to automatically clean your MAC system of SystemSpecial adware.
Use MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) to remove SystemSpecial adware software
Manual SystemSpecial adware removal requires some computer skills. Some files that created by the adware may be not completely removed. We advise that use the MalwareBytes Free that are fully clean your MAC OS of adware software. Moreover, this free utility will help you to delete browser hijacker, malware, potentially unwanted applications and toolbars that your MAC system may be infected too.
Download MalwareBytes Anti Malware by clicking on the link below.
20842 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: September 10, 2020
Once the download is complete, close all windows on your MAC. Further, launch the saved file. Follow the prompts.
The MalwareBytes Anti Malware will automatically start and you can see its main window as displayed in the following example.
Next, click the “Scan Now” button to begin checking your MAC OS for the SystemSpecial adware. While the MalwareBytes is scanning, you can see count of objects it has identified either as being malicious software.
When MalwareBytes has finished scanning, a list of all threats detected is produced. Review the results once the utility has complete the system scan. If you think an entry should not be quarantined, then uncheck it. Otherwise, simply press “Remove Selected Items” button.
The MalwareBytes Free will delete SystemSpecial .
How to stay safe online
Using an ad blocking program such as AdGuard is an effective way to alleviate the risks. Additionally, ad-blocking software will also protect you from malicious advertisements and web pages, and, of course, block redirection chain to misleading and similar web-pages.
- Download AdGuard on your Apple Mac from the link below.
AdGuard for Mac download
3677 downloads
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: January 17, 2018
- After the downloading process is finished, start the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” program window. Follow the prompts.
- Once the installation is done, click “Skip” to close the installation program and use the default settings, or press “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial that will assist you get to know AdGuard better.
- In most cases, the default settings are enough and you don’t need to change anything. Each time, when you launch your machine, AdGuard will launch automatically and stop undesired ads, block harmful or misleading web-sites.
Finish words
Now your MAC system should be free of the SystemSpecial adware. We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you block unwanted ads and undesired harmful web-pages) and MalwareBytes (to periodically scan your MAC for new malware, browser hijacker infections and adware). Make sure that you have all the Critical Updates recommended for Mac OS. Without regular updates you WILL NOT be protected when new hijackers, malicious software and adware software are released.
If you are still having problems while trying to remove SystemSpecial ads from your web browser, then ask for help here.
