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I have Safari infected with a virus. I installed latest upgrade OS X El Capitan and ran Avast (I have had Avast the whole time but it snuck through). I need to get rid of Safari and reinstall it. I can't figure out how to do this, as I already have the latest OS version.
Help please.
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012), iOS 9.2.1
It's not infected with a virus.
Please describe the symptoms that make you think it is.
Did you install some Adware?
Do you have any suspect Extensions installed for Safari?
And, Avast is more like malware than most of the malware in the wild.
It's not infected with a virus.
Please describe the symptoms that make you think it is.
Did you install some Adware?
Do you have any suspect Extensions installed for Safari?
And, Avast is more like malware than most of the malware in the wild.
BrazosApple wrote:
I have Safari infected with a virus. I installed latest upgrade OS X El Capitan and ran Avast (I have had Avast the whole time but it snuck through). I need to get rid of Safari and reinstall it. I can't figure out how to do this, as I already have the latest OS version.
Help please.
One, there are no viruses for OS X, so that's not what happened. Two, Avast is useless on a Mac computer, like all anti-virus programs right now, and you need to uninstall it according to the developer's directions. Three, you can't get rid of Safari — it's tied to the operating system. It cannot be removed. Four, what makes you think anything has infected your computer in the first place? What are you experiencing? What is happening?
First Safari started always sending me to a website. This was over a month ago. I updated the OS and ran Avast and found a common Russian trojan (if I am remembering correctly). If I tried to exit it kept making more pop up windows. It is one of the big name common ones that has been around for several years in slightly different variations. I just closed Safari and started using Mozilla, since I had updated the OS and Avast was not working.
I installed Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and ran it and it sped things up. Safari still did not work and gave me pop up windows. So for about 6 weeks I have closed it any time it tried to open, and I have used Mozilla.
I opened Safari today after getting your email, and got the blue wheel going for almost a minute -- then it seems to be working ok, so I am at a loss. Sorry I can't remember the virus that Avast found.
I guess I don't make the distinction of malware and virus. Things still seem to be working a little slower than they should.
I have late 2013 27" with 3.2GHa i5 and 16GB and NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1024MB.
Thanks for your help. Sorry I did not keep better records of exactly what happened.
Sounds like you installed Adware on your Mac--Anti-virus software does not detect or remove Adware
See here on how to remove it either manually or with a tool: http://www.thesafemac.com/arg/
Or, trudge through Apple's manual removal guide, here: Stop pop-up ads and adware in Safari - Apple Support
You may stumble upon something that MB is unaware of.
It may also be just some other crapware you installed. This program will list the things you have installed: http://etrecheck.com
You can post the output here, or try to sift through it yourself.
Another possibility with browser redirects is that your router could have been hacked.
Did you change the default username and password when you installed it? If you did, then it is most likely not that.
"Avast" is the worst of the whole wretched lot of commercial "security" products for the Mac. Not only does it fail to protect you from any real danger, it may send personal data (such as web browsing history and the contents of email messages) back to the developer without your knowledge, give false warnings, destabilize and slow down the computer, expose you to network attack, and corrupt the network settings and the permissions of files in your home folder. Removing it may not repair all the damage.
Some versions of the product also inject advertising into web pages. In short, apart from the fine print in the license agreement, Avast is indistinguishable from malware, and is arguably worse than any known malware now in circulation.
Please back up all data, then remove Avast according to the developer's instructions. Restart. Never install any "anti-virus" or "anti-malware" software again.
If you tried to remove Avast by dragging an application to the Trash, you'll have to reinstall it and then follow the instructions linked above.
well you just got a dose of how useful avast is protecting against adware, because it's not protecting you against any mac "virus" right now.
I think your computer is infected with Adware or Malware which you should completely remove manually as mentioned by Barney. I don't think you will need to reinstall Safari.You should only do this in case safari application has become corrupted.And as per Apple you can not reinstall Safari, you will have to reinstall the OS X.But there are workaround you could use to reinstall Safari.
Follow the steps below to reinstall it.
1. Open terminal and type the following command to cd /Applications/ and hit enter.
2. then type the command sudo rm -rf Safari.app/ to remove safari.
3. Now type the command "defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1" without quotes to show hidden debug menu of Disk utility.
4. Now click on the Debug menu and select show every partition.this will show Recovery HD (650MB).Click on it and click on mount button on top menu bar.
5.Now download pacifist.
6.Open pacifist and select Open Package and then browse for recovery HD , Select it and then go to Com.Apple.recovery.boot and load base system.dmg.
7. Once the Base System.dmg is loaded you would see all of its contents.Select safari under application and extract it to Application folder to reinstall it.
And now you should have a fresh new Safari.app.
My Safari is infected with a virus. Even with latest OS El Capitan and Avast. How can I reinstall Safari?
