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

What is ServiceInfo

ServiceInfo is an adware application that targets Mac computers. Adware’s basic purpose is to display unwanted advertisements. These advertisements are often shown as in-text links, unclosable windows or different offers and deals. Clicks on the ads produce a monetary payoff for the adware creators. ServiceInfo can work like Spyware, since it sends confidential information such as searches and trends to advertisers.

Does adware steal your personal information? The ServiceInfo adware can gather a wide variety of your privacy information that can be later sold to third parties. You don’t know if your home address, account names and passwords are safe. Therefore it’s very important to follow the steps below as quickly as possible. The steps will assist you to remove ServiceInfo as well as get rid of unwanted ads. What is more, the few simple steps below will help you uninstall malicious applications such as unwanted toolbars and browser hijackers which can be installed onto computer along with the adware.

How does ServiceInfo get on your computer

Most of unwanted ads and popups come from browser toolbars and/or extensions, BHOs (browser helper objects) and bundled programs. In most cases, these items claim itself as software which improve your experience on the Net by providing a fast and interactive homepage or a search engine that does not track you. Remember, how to avoid the unwanted apps. Be cautious, launch only reputable software which download from reputable sources. NEVER install any unknown and dubious programs.

Threat Summary

Name	ServiceInfo
Type	adware, potentially unwanted program (PUP), Mac malware, Mac virus
Detection Names	Adware.MAC.Generic, Adware/Adload!OSX, Program:MacOS/Vigram.A, Trojan-Downloader.OSX.Adload, MacOS.Agent-MT, ApplicUnwnt, OSX.Trojan.Gen and Osx.Adware.Cimpli
Distribution	Free software installers, fake updaters, torrent downloads and malicious pop up advertisements
Symptoms	Every time you perform an Internet search, your internet browser is redirected to another website, pop up ads won’t go away, there is an unexpected application in the ‘Applications’ section of the Finder, new toolbars suddenly installed on your internet browser, unexpected changes in your browser like displaying new tabs you didn’t open, fast Internet but slow browsing speeds.
Removal	ServiceInfo removal guide

How to remove ServiceInfo from Mac

The following step-by-step guidance will help you to get rid of ServiceInfo ads from Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Moreover, the tutorial below will allow you to remove malware, browser hijackers, potentially unwanted applications and toolbars that your machine may be infected. Please do the guide step by step. If you need help or have any questions, then ask for our assistance or type a comment below. Read this manual carefully, bookmark it or open this page on your smartphone, because you may need to close your internet browser or reboot your MAC.

To remove ServiceInfo, execute the steps below:

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

Remove profiles created by ServiceInfo

ServiceInfo can install a configuration profile on the Mac system to block changes made to the browser settings. Therefore, you need to open system preferences, find and delete the profile installed by the adware.

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 ServiceInfo.

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.

Delete ServiceInfo related applications through the Finder

The next step to remove adware, browser hijackers and PUPs is to remove unknown and dubious programs. Using the Finder you can do this quickly and easily. We suggest you not to skip this step, as it often helps to get rid of internet browser redirects and unwanted ads.

Open Finder and click “Applications”.

Very carefully look around the entire list of apps installed on your MAC. Most probably, one of them is the ServiceInfo adware software. Once you’ve found a suspicious, unwanted or unused program, right click to it and select “Move to Trash”. Another way is drag the application from the Applications folder to the Trash.

Don’t forget, choose Finder -> “Empty Trash”.

Remove ServiceInfo related files and folders

Now you need to try to find ServiceInfo 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.

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

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

Some files created by ServiceInfo 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 ServiceInfo 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: installapp.plist, search.plist, macsearch.plist, com.machelper.plist, com.google.defaultsearch.plist, , com.ServiceInfo.service.plist and com.net-preferences.plist. Most often, adware software, browser hijackers and potentially unwanted programs create several files with similar names.

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

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

Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes

We advise using MalwareBytes to scan the Mac device for adware, potentially unwanted programs and browser hijackers. This free utility is an advanced malware removal program created by (c) Malwarebytes lab. This program uses the world’s most popular anti-malware technology. It is able to help you delete browser hijackers and other security threats from your Mac device for free.

Please go to the link below to download the latest version of MalwareBytes Free for Apple Mac.

After the downloading process is finished, run it and follow the prompts. Press the “Scan” button to perform a system scan for the ServiceInfo . A scan can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of files on your computer and the speed of your computer. Review the results once the utility has done the system scan. If you think an entry should not be quarantined, then uncheck it. Otherwise, simply click the “Quarantine” button.

The MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) is a free program that you can use to get rid of all detected folders, files, malicious services and so on.

Remove ServiceInfo from Safari, Chrome, Firefox

If you’re still seeing ServiceInfo adware that won’t go away, you might have malicious extensions installed on your browser. Check your browser for unwanted extensions using the steps below.

Google Chrome	Mozilla Firefox
In the top right hand corner, click on ‘three vertical dots’, and this will open up the main menu on Chrome. Select ‘More tools’, then ‘Extensions’. Click ‘Remove’ to uninstall an extension. Click ‘Remove’ in the dialog box. You can also try to remove ServiceInfo adware 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 ServiceInfo adware removal, you need to reset Mozilla 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

Enabling an ad blocker tool like AdGuard is an effective way to alleviate the risks. Additionally, ad-blocker programs will also protect you from malicious ads and web-pages, and, of course, block redirection chain to misleading, scam and similar websites.

1. Installing the AdGuard is simple. First you’ll need to download AdGuard from the link below. Save it on your MS Windows desktop.
   
   

   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 setup is complete, click “Skip” to close the setup application and use the default settings, or press “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial which will help you get to know AdGuard better.
4. In most cases, the default settings are enough and you do not need to change anything. Each time, when you launch your MAC system, AdGuard will run automatically and stop intrusive ads, block harmful and misleading webpages.

To sum up

We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you stop unwanted pop-up advertisements and unwanted harmful web pages) and MalwareBytes (to periodically scan your computer for new adware softwares and other malicious software).

If you are still having problems while trying to remove ServiceInfo from the Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, then ask for help here here.