How to uninstall PositiveSearchGuide from Chrome, Firefox, Safari

What is PositiveSearchGuide?

The computer security researchers have determined that PositiveSearchGuide is a malicious browser extension belonging to the category of Browser hijackers. Browser hijackers are a type of software that is designed to take over the browser and control user’s surfing preferences. It commonly aims at Chrome web-browser, but it’s possible that it can hijack other web-browser too. Browser hijackers can sneak into MAC computers unnoticed due to the fact that it’s actively being promoted in free applications. We recommend that you delete PositiveSearchGuide as soon as you notice the changes it has made to your search provider, new tab page and startpage.

The PositiveSearchGuide hijacker takes over your internet browser’s default search engine and controls what will be shown to you whenever you do a searching. Other than the search results, it also provides lots of annoying advertisements on the search page. Some of these advertisements designed to mislead you into buying some questionable products and software. Moreover, sometimes, those advertisements could redirect you to misleading or harmful websites.

And finally, the PositiveSearchGuide hijacker can be used to gather a wide variety of user data about you such as what web pages you are opening, what you are looking for the Internet and so on. This information, in the future, can be used for marketing purposes.

If you are unfortunate have the browser hijacker, adware or malicious software running on your MAC, you can follow the steps here to remove PositiveSearchGuide from the Apple Mac.

How can a browser hijacker get on your machine

The majority of browser hijackers such as PositiveSearchGuide come bundled with freeware or even paid apps that Internet users can easily download online. The installation packages of such applications, most often, clearly show that they will install additional software. The option is given to users to stop the installation of any bundled programs. So, in order to avoid the setup of any browser hijackers: read all disclaimers and install screens very carefully, select only Custom or Advanced installation method and uncheck all optional programs in which you are unsure.

Threat Summary

Name	PositiveSearchGuide
Type	home page hijacker, redirect virus, search provider hijacker, PUP, browser hijacker
Affected Browser Settings	search provider, newtab URL, startpage
Distribution	misleading pop-up ads, fake updaters, free applications setup files
Symptoms	You experience a huge number of of unexpected pop up ads. Your internet browser is redirected to web-sites you did not want. New entries appear in your Programs folder. Unexpected web-browser plugins or toolbar keep coming back. Your browser settings are being altered without your request.
Removal	PositiveSearchGuide removal guide

How to remove PositiveSearchGuide from Chrome, Firefox, Safari

As with deleting adware software, malware or potentially unwanted apps, there are few steps you can do. We suggest trying them all. If you do only one part of the tutorial, then it should be run malware removal utility, because it should remove browser hijacker and block any further infection. But to completely remove PositiveSearchGuide you will have to at least reset your browser settings such as new tab, search provider by default and startpage to default state, uninstall any unwanted and suspicious applications, and remove hijacker with malicious software removal tools. Read it once, after doing so, please bookmark this page (or open it on your smartphone) as you may need to close your web browser or reboot your machine.

To remove PositiveSearchGuide, execute the following steps:

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

Remove profiles created by PositiveSearchGuide

PositiveSearchGuide 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 the System Preferences icon ( ) in the Dock, or choose Apple menu ( ) > System Preferences.

In System Preferences, click Profiles, then select a profile related to PositiveSearchGuide.

Click the minus button ( – ) located at the bottom-left of the Profiles screen to remove the profile.
Note: if you do not see Profiles in the System Preferences, that means there are no profiles installed on your Mac, which is normal.

Remove PositiveSearchGuide related apps through the Finder

The next step in deleting PUPs, adware and browser hijackers by yourself is to go into the Finder, then Applications. Take a look at the list of software on your Mac device and see if there are any suspicious and unknown programs. If you see any, you need to delete it. Of course, before doing so, you can do an Web search to find details on the program. If it is a PUP, adware software and browser hijacker, you will likely find information that says so.

Open Finder and click “Applications”.

It will display a list of all apps installed on your MAC OS. Scroll through the all list, and delete any suspicious and unknown apps. Right click to dubious program and select “Move to Trash”. Another way is drag the application from the Applications folder to the Trash.

Most important, scroll through the all list, and move to trash any unknown applications. Don’t forget, choose Finder -> Empty Trash.

Remove PositiveSearchGuide related files and folders

Now you need to try to find PositiveSearchGuide 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.

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

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

Some files created by PositiveSearchGuide 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 PositiveSearchGuide 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.net-preferences.plist, com.machelper.plist, installapp.plist, com.google.defaultsearch.plist, , search.plist, macsearch.plist and com.PositiveSearchGuide.service.plist. Most often, PUPs, adware and browser hijackers create several files with similar names.

Check for PositiveSearchGuide 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.PositiveSearchGuide.system, then this folder must be deleted. Move all suspicious folders and files to the Trash.

Check for PositiveSearchGuide 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 PositiveSearchGuide 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.macsearch.system.plist, com.installapp.system.plist, com.PositiveSearchGuide.system.plist, com.machelper.system.plist and com.search.system.plist. In most cases, adware software, browser hijackers and potentially unwanted programs create several files with similar names.

Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes

You can remove PositiveSearchGuide associated files automatically with a help of MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM). We recommend this free malware removal utility because it can easily get rid of potentially unwanted programs, adware, toolbars and browser hijackers with all their components such as files, folders and system entries.

1. MalwareBytes Free can be downloaded from the following link.
   
   

   Malwarebytes Anti-malware (Mac)
   20841 downloads
   Author: Malwarebytes
   Category: Security tools
   Update: September 10, 2020
   
2. After the downloading process is done, close all programs and windows on your MAC system. Open a folder in which you saved it. Run the downloaded file and follow the prompts.
3. Press the “Scan” button to perform a system scan with this utility for the PositiveSearchGuide browser hijacker. This procedure can take quite a while, so please be patient. When a malware, adware or potentially unwanted software are found, the count of the security threats will change accordingly.
4. When finished, the results are displayed in the scan report. Once you have selected what you wish to delete from your MAC click “Quarantine”.

Remove PositiveSearchGuide from Safari, Chrome, Firefox

If you have ‘PositiveSearchGuide hijacker’ removal problem, then remove unwanted extensions can help you. In the steps below we’ll show you the way to remove malicious add-ons without reinstall. This will also help to delete PositiveSearchGuide browser hijacker from your web-browser.

Google Chrome	Mozilla Firefox
Click on ‘three dots menu’ button at the top right corner of the Google Chrome window. Select ‘More tools’, then ‘Extensions’. Click ‘Remove’ to uninstall an extension. Click ‘Remove’ in the dialog box. You can also try to remove PositiveSearchGuide browser hijacker by reset 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 PositiveSearchGuide browser hijacker 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 stop PositiveSearchGuide redirect

If you surf the Internet, you can’t avoid malicious advertising. But you can protect your browser against it. Download and run an adblocker program. AdGuard is an ad blocking which can filter out a lot of of the malvertising, blocking dynamic scripts from loading malicious content.

Installing the AdGuard is simple. First you’ll need to download AdGuard on your MS Windows Desktop by clicking on the following link.

When the download is finished, launch the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen. Follow the prompts.

Each time, when you start your computer, AdGuard will start automatically and stop unwanted ads, block PositiveSearchGuide redirect, as well as other harmful or misleading web-sites.

To sum up

After completing the few simple steps shown above, your machine should be free from PositiveSearchGuide browser hijacker and other malicious software. Mozilla Firefox, Chrome and Safari will no longer display any unwanted ads. Unfortunately, if the instructions does not help you, then you have caught a new hijacker, and then the best way – ask for help here.