How do I get rid of AdChoices on Safari?

I have this problem too on my MacBook. I have FF23, Flash Player 11.8, Safari 6.0.5. The problem occurs BOTH in Firefox AND Safari. These appear as double-underlined green text. Putting the cursor over the text sometimes produces a pop-up for NAV-LINKS (the link for endlessmatches.com goes to NAV-LINKS). Other times it produces a pop-up for ADCHOICES (see gray text in upper left corner of screen shot). Clicking on the opt-out button at NAV-LINKS is useless. The hassle of opting out at ADCHOICES is mind-boggling.

In Firefox I have tried setting AdBlockPlus to reject all ads, even non-intrusive ones. This has had no effect. In Firefox I have also disabled all extensions. This has had no effect either.

I have tried all the advice I can find online so far (use AdBlockPlus, disable extensions, etc.). Nothing's working. AND this exists cross-browser, in FF and Safari. So it must exist somewhere else. Any ideas or information appreciated.

CAN I OPT OUT OF INTEREST-BASED ADVERTISING?

Yes. The AdChoices program is all about giving you information and control so that you can make informed choices about the interest-based advertising you receive online. The AdChoices Icon—whether in an advertisement or on Web pages—gives you access to consumer choice mechanisms where you may, at any time, opt out of the interest-based advertising that you receive from participating companies.

From here > Your AdChoices - How interest based advertising finds you

message edited by: cs

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In Safari:

1. I first selected with the mouse the double-underlined green text.
2. Right-click of the mouse and selected Inspect Element. This gave me a clue of what is the address I want to get rid of. For instance for AdChoices link I found a reference to http://images.intellitxt.com/...
3. On a Terminal I ran

sudo vi /etc/hosts

to edit the file hosts as root user.

At the end of the file I added

0.0.0.0 images.intellitxt.com

Saved the file and quit. That's it. Just refresh your web page and the links should be gone.

This worked like a charm! Thanks!

Thanks, worked great! Cleaned up Safari and Firefox.

Can you explain how you found the adchoice link

I'm having the same problem and I don't know how to fix it. I've seen practically all of the responses that have worked for other people, but they don't seem to work for me. I tried looking at the extensions tab (where some people said intext-nav or some other extension was that shouldn't be there) but I have nothing in my extensions tab. Can somebody please help me?

I called Apple support and they told me it was a virus and I had to wipe my whole computer and reinstall the operating system. It fixed the problem for me

I clicked on the "opt out" option and immediately quit Safari and reopened it and no longer see any green text. I think this may have fixed it.

What "opt out" option did you click on?

Note that you may have adware or some other problem, and that this may not have done anything to fix that. See my Adware Removal Guide.

mjdoran10 wrote:

I called Apple support and they told me it was a virus and I had to wipe my whole computer and reinstall the operating system. It fixed the problem for me

That would fix the problem, but this isn't actually a virus, and that solution would have been overkill.

I was able to get rid of this pesky thing by trashing the following folder:

/Library/Application Support/VSearch

Just use Finder to go here & drag the entire folder to the trash. Then restart your computer to complete the process. Hope this works for everyone else.

willp0wer wrote:

I was able to get rid of this pesky thing by trashing the following folder:

If you had that folder, deleting it by itself isn't enough. You need to follow the instructions here:

http://www.thesafemac.com/arg-downlite/

Hi there, I am wondering if you can break your advice on this issue down into simpler steps.

I am having the identical issue to the screen shots demonstrated above

I can find the 'inspect elements' prompt, and the higlighted line within that info reads the following:
<span class="umhl04" id="umhl04_3">Performers</span>

.... and then I have no idea what to do

My laptop is still brand new and this is doing my head in so a full reset may be the best plan.

Thoughts? Thanks for your help.