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utorrent messed with my browser settings among other things?

So I had downloaded utorrent yesterday but ended up not needing it like I did and I realized that it had changed my browser settings to go straight to Yahoo Search. I fixed the extensions and reset the browser home page and everything and continued on my day not thinking much about it and shut down my computer before i went to bed.

This morning though, I tried to turn on my computer and rather than an apple symbol coming up while it turned on, it showed a circle with a slash going through it. I did a reboot and managed to get my computer to turn on normally. I went to my browser and once again, Yahoo was coming up. I did a bit of searching and found out that with the utorrent download, it sets up the crappy yahoo search so I tried to uninstall utorrent (it doesnt give any uninstall option so i dragged everything i could find having to do with utorrent and put it in the trashcan and emptied the trash) but STILL, my browser is going straight to Yahoo. I can't figure out how to change it or find whatever it is that is on my computer that is making this happen and I can't find a proper answer anywhere else on the internet. I'm not sure if the computer startup problem is just a coincidence or if it is due to whatever was set up with utorrent. What can I do to fix the browser problem? could the start up issue be related? I'm afraid I might have a virus or something. Is there a way I can reset things to how they were 2 days ago when I didn't have this issue?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 11, 2013 3:17 PM

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4 replies

Oct 11, 2013 3:44 PM in response to jade_otano

Open Safari:

From the Safari Menu > Reset Safari


Menu Bar > Safari> Preferences > Extensions > "Uninstall" any yahoo related extensions


Quit Safari.


Open Finder.

From the Menu Bar, Go > Go to Folder... > /Library/Internet Plug-ins/


Trash any yahoo Plug-ins.


Open Safari back up. Is the yahoo search bar gone?

Mar 4, 2015 3:27 AM in response to jade_otano

These mofos - I trusted uTorrent because it's always been good so just clicked yes yes yes without reading. To change these settings back on chrome:

1. Open settings (either top right "hamburger" or from the menu bar Chrome -> Preferences

2. In the section "On startup" it's set it to "Open a page or specific set of pages". Click set pages and delete that yahoo crap and then choose your preferred option (I like "Continue where you left off")

3. It's changed your default search engine to Yahoo. Still in preferences, in the Search section click "Manage Search Engines". Click "Make default" next to Google then delete all the search engines you never want to use.



I think that puts everything back how it was. Will repost if I find anything else.

May 11, 2016 2:20 PM in response to jade_otano

In my experience, restoring the browser settings didn't work - after a restart it had reverted to Yahoo Search.


To fix it properly I needed to run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware first (it found something called searchme@mybrowserbar.com) and then clean the browser settings


There's a good page giving manual cleanup instructions at https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-utorrent-toolbar-virus/ (it's targeted at Windows, but the browser instructions are mostly same for Mac)


There's a Mac-specific page at http://macremover.com/uninstallguides/2015/12/16/how-to-uninstall-utorrent-from- mac-properly-and-completely/ but it doesn't cover cleaning the browsers.

utorrent messed with my browser settings among other things?

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