How to uninstall DesignDefault app/extension from Mac (Virus removal guide)

What is DesignDefault

According to security experts, DesignDefault is an adware application. Adware is a form of malware software designed to throw ads up on your web-browser screen. Adware generates profit for its creator by often displaying lots of advertisements and pop-up deals. You might experience a change in your start page or search provider, new tabs opening or even a redirect to malicious web pages.

Does the adware software steal your data? DesignDefault is able to gather lots of marketing-type data about you that can be later sold to third party companies. You don’t know if your home address, account names and passwords are safe.

If your browser has been affected with the adware, you must have complete the steps below. Once you have removed DesignDefault from your computer by following our instructions below, make sure not to commit the same mistakes again in the future.

How does DesignDefault get on your Apple Mac

Adware software usually comes on Mac computers with freeware. Most commonly, it comes without the user’s knowledge. Therefore, many users aren’t even aware that their Mac has been hijacked with PUAs and adware software. Please follow the easy rules in order to protect your MAC from adware software and PUAs: don’t install any suspicious applications, read the user agreement and choose only the Custom, Manual or Advanced install mode, don’t rush to click the Next button. Also, always try to find a review of the application on the Internet. Be careful and attentive!

Threat Summary

Name	DesignDefault
Type	adware software, PUA (potentially unwanted app), Mac malware, Mac virus
Detection Names	Adware.MAC.Generic, Trojan-Downloader.OSX.Adload, Program:MacOS/Vigram.A, Adware/Adload!OSX, MacOS.Agent-MT, OSX.Trojan.Gen, Osx.Adware.Cimpli and ApplicUnwnt
Distribution	Freeware installers, fake software updaters, suspicious pop up ads and torrent downloads
Symptoms	Every time you perform an Internet search, your internet browser is redirected to another web-page, advertising banners appear in places they shouldn’t be, new entries appear in your Applications folder, unwanted web browser toolbars, your web browser settings are being modified without your request, low ping but slow Internet.
Removal	DesignDefault removal guide

How to Remove DesignDefault (removal instructions)

Not all PUAs such as DesignDefault are easily uninstallable. You may see pop-ups, deals, text links, in-text ads, banners and other type of ads in the Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari and may not be able to figure out the application responsible for this activity. The reason for this is that many apps neither appear in the Finder. Therefore in order to fully delete the adware software, you need to follow the steps below. Read this manual carefully, bookmark it or open this page on your smartphone, because you may need to close your browser or reboot your MAC OS.

To remove DesignDefault, complete the steps below:

1. Remove profiles created by DesignDefault
2. Remove DesignDefault related apps through the Finder
3. Remove DesignDefault related files and folders
4. Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes
5. Remove DesignDefault from Safari, Chrome, Firefox
6. How to stay safe online

Remove profiles created by DesignDefault

DesignDefault can make changes to the Mac system such as malicious changes to browser settings, and the addition of malicious system profiles. You need to check the system preferences, find and remove malicious profiles and ensure your settings are as you expect.

Click Apple menu ( ) > System Preferences.

In System Preferences, select Profiles. if there is no Profiles in the list of preferences, that means there are no profiles installed on the Mac device. If there is Profiles in the list, then click on it, then select a profile associated with DesignDefault.

To delete a malicious profile, click on the minus button ( – ) located at the bottom-left of the Profiles screen.

Remove DesignDefault related apps through the Finder

Some of adware, browser hijackers and PUPs can be uninstalled using the Move to Trash tool which can be found in the Finder. So, if you’re using any version of Mac and you have noticed an unwanted application, then first try to delete it through the Finder.

Make sure you have closed all web browsers and other apps. Next, uninstall any unwanted and suspicious programs from Apple Mac using the Finder.

Open Finder and click “Applications”.

Look around the entire list of software installed on your MAC system. Most likely, one of them is the DesignDefault adware software. Choose the suspicious program or the program that name is not familiar to you and uninstall it.

Drag the dubious application from the Applications folder to the Trash.

Most important, don’t forget, choose Finder -> Empty Trash.

Remove DesignDefault related files and folders

Now you need to try to find DesignDefault related files and folders, and then delete them manually. You need to look for these files in certain directories. To quickly open them, we recommend using the “Go to Folder…” command.

DesignDefault creates several files, these files must be found and removed. Below is a list of files associated with this unwanted program.

• /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.DesignDefault.system.plist
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.DesignDefault.service.plist
• /Library/Application Support/.(RANDOM)/System/com.DesignDefault.system
• ~/Library/Application Support/.(RANDOM)/Services/com.DesignDefault.service.app

Some files created by DesignDefault are hidden from the user. To find and delete them, you need to enable “show hidden files”. To do this, use the shortcut CMD + SHIFT + . Press once to show hidden files and again to hide them. There is another way. Click Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal. In Terminal, paste the following text: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Press Enter. Hold the ‘Option/alt’ key, then right click on the Finder icon in the dock and click Relaunch.

Click on the Finder icon. From the menu bar, select Go and click “Go to Folder…”. As a result, a small window opens that allows you to quickly open a specific directory.

Check for DesignDefault generated files in the /Library/LaunchAgents folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/LaunchAgents

This will open the contents of the “/Library/LaunchAgents” folder. Look carefully at it and pay special attention to recently created files, as well as files that have a suspicious name. Move all suspicious files to the Trash. A few examples of files: com.google.defaultsearch.plist, , macsearch.plist, search.plist, com.DesignDefault.service.plist, installapp.plist, com.machelper.plist and com.net-preferences.plist. Most often, browser hijackers, PUPs and adware software create several files with similar names.

Check for DesignDefault generated files in the /Library/Application Support folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/Application Support

This will open the contents of the “Application Support” folder. Look carefully at its contents, pay special attention to recently added/changed folders and files. Check the contents of suspicious folders, if there is a file with a name similar to com.DesignDefault.system, then this folder must be deleted. Move all suspicious folders and files to the Trash.

Check for DesignDefault generated files in the “~/Library/LaunchAgents” folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
~/Library/LaunchAgents

Proceed in the same way as with the “/Library/LaunchAgents” and “/Library/Application Support” folders. Look for suspicious and recently added files. Move all suspicious files to the Trash.

Check for DesignDefault generated files in the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/LaunchDaemons

Carefully browse the entire list of files and pay special attention to recently created files, as well as files that have a suspicious name. Move all suspicious files to the Trash. A few examples of files to be deleted: com.DesignDefault.system.plist, com.installapp.system.plist, com.macsearch.system.plist, com.machelper.system.plist and com.search.system.plist. In most cases, potentially unwanted programs, browser hijackers and adware create several files with similar names.

Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes

If you carefully followed the previous steps, then you should be able to get rid of DesignDefault. Of course, very often browser hijackers, adware and potentially unwanted programs hides on a Mac, disguising itself as legitimate apps and files. Therefore, in some cases, it is difficult for an inexperienced user to decide whether a particular file is part of potentially unwanted programs, browser hijackers and adware. Therefore, we recommend you to run MalwareBytes to scan the Mac.

Installing the MalwareBytes AntiMalware is simple. First you’ll need to download MalwareBytes Free on your Windows Desktop by clicking on the link below.

Once the download is done, close all apps and windows on your machine. Open a directory in which you saved it. Run the saved file and follow the prompts.

Once setup is done, you will see window as displayed below.

Now click the “Scan” button to scan for DesignDefault . This procedure may take some time, so please be patient. While the MalwareBytes Anti-Malware program is checking, you can see count of objects it has identified as threat.

When that process is complete, you may check all items detected on your machine. All detected items will be marked. You can remove them all by simply press “Quarantine” button.

The Malwarebytes will now get rid of DesignDefault and move the selected items to the Quarantine.

Remove DesignDefault from Safari, Chrome, Firefox

If you’re still getting DesignDefault adware, then you can try to remove it by deleting malicious extensions.

Google Chrome	Mozilla Firefox
In the top right hand corner, click on ‘three vertical dots’, and this will open up the main menu on Google Chrome. When the drop-down menu appears, select ‘More tools’ and click on ‘Extensions’. Click ‘Remove’ to uninstall an extension. Click ‘Remove’ in the dialog box. You can also try to get rid of DesignDefault adware software by reset Google Chrome settings.	Click on ‘menu’ button and select ‘Add-ons’. Go to ‘Extensions’ tab. To uninstall an add-on, click on ‘Remove’ button next to it. If you are still experiencing problems with DesignDefault adware removal, you need to reset Firefox browser.
Safari
On the top menu select ‘Safari’, then ‘Preferences’. Select ‘Extensions’ tab. Select an extension you want to delete and click ‘Uninstall’ button next to it.

How to stay safe online

It is also critical to protect your internet browsers from malicious websites and ads by using an ad blocker program like AdGuard. Security experts says that it’ll greatly reduce the risk of malicious software, and potentially save lots of money. Additionally, the AdGuard may also protect your privacy by blocking almost all trackers.

1. AdGuard can be downloaded from the following link.
   
   

   AdGuard for Mac download
   3677 downloads
   Author: © Adguard
   Category: Security tools
   Update: January 17, 2018
   
2. Once downloading is finished, launch the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” program window. Follow the prompts.
3. Once the install is complete, click “Skip” to close the setup program and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial that will allow you get to know AdGuard better.
4. In most cases, the default settings are enough and you don’t need to change anything. Each time, when you run your machine, AdGuard will start automatically and stop intrusive advertisements, block malicious and misleading webpages.

To sum up

Now your MAC should be free of the DesignDefault adware. We suggest that you keep MalwareBytes Free (to periodically scan your Mac for new adware and malware) and AdGuard (to help you block annoying pop up advertisements and harmful web pages). Moreover, to prevent any adware, please stay clear of unknown and third party apps.

If you need more help with adware related issues, go to here.