Q: A nasty thing called "install.mac" has hijacked my Safari address bar search...

I ran the Genieo uninstaller, and it did uninstall one element, but left MANY. A thing called "Completer" was asking for my password to "make changes". I did a search for this and found that it was part of the Genieo installation that modified both Safari and Firefox. Luckily I found out about Adware Medic, which is a free tool (donationware) that will scan, identify and eradicate all the Genieo (and other adware) garbage. It is available here: http://www.adwaremedic.com/index.php When I ran this, it identified over eight items that were associated with Genieo, and it got rid of them all. I wish I would have taken a screenshot of all the stuff it identified, but I was too eager to get it off my computer and clicked to have it removed before I thought about taking a screenshot. Once you've done this, you may still have to go into Safari and Firefox to change your default page and search engine. In Safari it is pretty easy, but in Firefox you have to go into about:config and fix it (which is described by someone else here in this forum). Hope this helps.

I am making this account solely to say thank you! This worked perfectly. I had gotten the uninstaller and use that, but whenever i was doing a search it would only use Bing. I tried the FindFile thing and still couldn't track down all of the junk. I used that http://www.adwaremedic.com/index.php and it found like 6 files and got rid of them in 5 seconds flat. Thank you so much for posting and this works!

look what i found, it worked!  it was easy to delet it. Fianlly I am happy !(was so upset for days)

Please do not download more things that other pepple have said. I hate to download things that I  do not know.

This vidoe helped me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeVgeP-RsqA

appleloverfromCA wrote:

 

Please do not download more things that other pepple have said.

To each his own. There are hundreds if not thousands of users here in the forum like DallasDeckard and noahfromdowntown who were able to do the same thing much faster and easier and without one single complaint.

appleloverfromCA wrote:

 

look what i found, it worked!

 

No it didn't. That video is completely wrong. There are all kinds of files that have to be removed, and they are not mentioned in any way in that video.

Thank you Dr Mac, your advice did the trick and has helped a lot. That intrusive pop up icon was driving me mad before Christmas and it reappeared again this morning. Got rid of that beast now and thanks again!

Thanks tscadmin, your advice also helped me fix the problem on my Mac this morning. Had no idea that Lion and Mountain Lion had that nasty malware hiding in the Library until today.

floppymohawk wrote:

 

Thank you Dr Mac, your advice did the trick and has helped a lot.

No, Dr. Mac's advice is also bad. There seems to be a lot of bad advice here.

His advice refers to the InstallMac uninstaller, which is known not to fully remove the program - and worse, is known to install some components if they are not already present! See:

InstallMac uninstaller antics

For proper removal of Genieo (aka InstallMac), see either my Adware Removal Guide or Apple's document on removing adware.

(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com, in the form of buttons allowing for donations. Donations are not required to use my site or software.)

In case anyone else is suffering from this (I just did and got rid of it) Apple has a webpage just to get rid of this Installmac nonsense

Remove unwanted adware that displays pop-up ads and graphics on your Mac - Apple Support

Yes, the person that posted just before you mentioned that, as well.

AdwareMedic worked like a charm. Nice.

Curious how I got that InstallMac garbage on here... Only sketch app I've downloaded was an HD recovery tool.

Wondering what InstallMac can read from my computer. Was it recording keystrokes or anything?

cvok wrote:

 

Was it recording keystrokes or anything?

It has never been documented to do that, no. It just hijacks your browser, changing the search engine (and preventing you from changing it) and showing ads. This gets the scammers behind Genieo paid by their advertisers.

cvok wrote:

 

Curious how I got that InstallMac garbage on here..

See John Galt's How to install adware.

I experienced the same thing with InstallMac taking over my browsers and kept getting Wait or Kill Page messages ---very frustrating.

Whatever you do DO NOT click the Install Uninstaller or whatever it was called that is on their site. Be very careful to only download from reputable sites because these malware /adware programs are hidden in many downloads.

What worked for me was to go to got to the Mac App Store and download Find Any File, then I searched for InstallMac, InstallMC, Genieo and found numerous places where files were hidden in different places. This link gives some good direction on what to look for and delete as well. You'd be surprised how many names in which it hides on the computer. http://www.macissues.com/2014/04/23/how-to-detect-and-remove-genieo-for-mac/

Hope this helps!

I ended up with Install.Mac and Genieo both on my computer yesterday when I was installing an application from the Internet.  I very reluctantly used Adware Medic to get rid of both, and it was quite successful.  My computer is back to normal operation, and there's not a trace of either.  Very grateful to Thomas_R for his expertise!