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User profile for user: tinfoilrose
tinfoilrose Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Yahoo has taken over my Safari

I believe this happened when I downloaded a YouTube converter - it installed something that changes my browser to Yahoo, even though I have repeatedly set Google as my default browser in my Safari preferences. When I click on the new tab button, Google does come up as my "home page", that's not the issue. It's when I attempt to do a search right from the browser window at the top of the screen, my search results come up in Yahoo.


I've seen similar topics posted in the forum, but with no concrete fixes. How do I fix this so that Google is my default browser when I do a search in the top browser window?


Many thanks for any help!

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Oct 1, 2014 5:49 AM

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11 replies
User profile for user: belabacsi
belabacsi
User level: Level 1
12 points

Sep 6, 2017 11:51 AM in response to Bunge123

I tried everything to resolve this problem, with nothing working. I finally called AppleCare and they were able to resolve it. They found something that had been put on my computer, perhaps when updating flash, that even the woman on th phone couldn't find. They did a video snapshot on my computer of every process occurring over a minute or so and that enabled them to find what shouldn't have been there.

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User profile for user: dominic23
dominic23
User level: Level 10
83,952 points

Oct 1, 2014 8:03 AM in response to tinfoilrose

1. Safari > Preferences > Extensions


Turn those off and relaunch Safari again.


Turn those on one by one and test.





2. If adware is installed without your knowledge,


download free AdwareMedic by clicking “Download ” from here


http://www.adwaremedic.com/index.php


Install , open, and run it by clicking “Scan for Adware” button to remove adware.


Once done scanning and removing the adware, quit the app by clicking AdMedic in the menubar


and selecting “Quit AdwareMedic”.

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User profile for user: tinfoilrose
tinfoilrose Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Oct 1, 2014 8:17 AM in response to dominic23

Thank you so much, Dominic. Step #1 above did the trick!


For anyone else with this issue, the malware was installed during a download for a YouTube converter, and I didn't realize it at the time. If this happens to you, look in the Extensions section as noted above - for me, the extension that was added was a malware program called "Searchtab 1.0". I uninstalled it and now all is well.

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User profile for user: mslizzieemily
mslizzieemily
User level: Level 1
0 points

Oct 27, 2014 12:59 PM in response to thomas_r.

This happened to me after updating Flash. I didn't install anything out of the ordinary... so I really have no idea where it came from.


Really irritating though.


Edit: It really was Flash. Unless it was a very clever piece of software which opened Adobe's own Flash Install Manager and give me a free trial of Lightroom... All just to make me use Yahoo??

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Yahoo has taken over my Safari

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