what is GoldenBoy extension?

Can you uninstall it?

Safari > Preferences > Extensions

I suddenly lost control of my browser. Searches defaulted to Bing, and the Homepage defaulted to somewhere called Searchbenny. I changed the search engine and homepage, which allowed me to use Google again, BUT... as soon as I clicked on a link, I was sent to Bing rather than the desired site. I could see the URL bar flick from google to searchbenny.com to trove.com to bing.com. Now that is REALLY invasive. But turning off the Goldenboy extension fixed it. So it seems to be an extension that hijacks your searching function. Today I updated Java, DiskCatalogMaker and installed Wireshark and XQuartz. Who is the culprit?

That should have been" trovi.com". And I have uninstalled the extension.

1. Use free AdwareMedic to remove adware

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

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

Once done, quit AdwareMedic.

or

Remove the adware manually by following the “HowTo” from Apple.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203987

2. Safari > Preferences > Extensions

Turn those off and relaunch Safari.

Turn those on one by one and test.

3. Safari > Preferences > Search > Search Engine :

Select your preferred search engine.

4. Safari > Preferences > General > Homepage:

Set your Homepage.

DMC440 wrote:

Who is the culprit?

Good question. I've had one report of this GoldenBoy extension so far, linked to a download of HexEdit from Softonic. I'm unable to obtain the extension that way - I get a different piece of adware when I download the same installer - which makes me suspect that the downloaded adware may vary depending on some factor such as the region of the world you are downloading from.

If you downloaded something from Softonic, that's probably the culprit. In this case, I'd be curious to find out what you downloaded and what country you are in (if you are willing to share that information here).

I just picked up this extension from the Soundflower download on Softonic. I'm in Australia

I recently had to update my OS to Yosemite in order to accommodate my new Garmin's software. After updating to Yosemite, I could not use my Adobe design software (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.) unless I installed a newer version of Java, which I did. The newest version would not correctly install, so I read somewhere that I should use a slightly older version, so I installed that. Everything seemed to work fine because I was visiting sites directly, not using a search engine.
Today, I attempted to do a search and noticed that Bing repeatedly popped up in both my Safari and GoogleChrome browsers. I changed as many settings in Preferences as I could find to use Google as the preferred search engine. STILL, Bing would pop up. In my frustration (because, let's face it, Bing not only *****, but it is intrusive and any application that forces itself on you is bound to be unwanted), I came across the browser's Extensions folder and noticed only one extension in there. GOLDENBOY! I looked it up and found you wonderfully helpful geniuses! I've disabled the extension (not uninstalled, because I'm afraid it will score something else up...) and my search engine has repeatedly popped up GOOGLE!!!

Thank you (whoever figured this out!)

I propose someone make this Bing bullying nonsense public and that we rid ourselves of this subpar, unwanted search engine once and for all! (Have you GOOGLED any phrase containing the words BING and HATE? There is a LOT of evidence that we're not alone!)

Same problem here--only instead of Bing it was Yahoo. So, while I'm not the largest fan of either, I certainly don't think this is just some Bing propaganda. But other than that, same cause (Yosemite with an older installed version of Java). It is interesting that yours was Bing and mine Yahoo, though. Thanks for the solution!

I had Google sending me to search benny and bing as well. I just discovered the Goldenboy extension and I actually uninstalled it. I am hoping it doesn't mess anything else up on my mac. This all happened after the free upgrade to yosemite. 😟