ChumSearch malware/How to get rid of it?

I did find how to get rid of chumsearch. It was under Chumsearch.com FAQ... found at chumsearch.com

I would have never thought to look there because I thought it was sinister software. Not sure what it is... but nevertheless chumsearch.com produced a page of instructions to uninstall it. I tried it and it worked.

Uninstall instructions for Safari:

Home Page:

 1. Open Safari Preferences 2. In the General tab, find the Home Page label. 3. In the text box next to it, replace the current address (URL) with the address of web site you want to set as home page 4. Alternatively, you can open Safari to any page you want to set as home page, and thenopen Preferences and click the Set to Current page button.  

Default Search Provider:

 1. Open Safari Preferences 2. Go to the extensions tab. 3. Find the Chumsearch extension and click the Uninstall button.  

Uninstall instructions for Chrome:

Home Page:

 1. Open Chrome Preferences (also called settings) 2. In the Start Up section click the Set Pages link. 3. In the box that opens, type in or paste the  web address (URL) of  the website you want to set as your new home page 4. Click OK 5. Do the same in the Appearance section. Click the Change link and past the web address (URL) again 6. Click OK  

Default Search Provider:

 1. Open Chrome Preferences 2. In The Search section click the Manage Search Engines button 3. In the window that opens, choose the Search Engine you prefer and click the Make Default button – then click Done  

Uninstall instructions for Firefox:

Home Page:

 1. Open Firefox Preferences 2. Open the General tab 2. In the Home page text box (in the Startup section), type in or paste the web address (URL) of the website you want to set as your home page 3. Click OK 4. Alternatively, you can open Firefox on any website you want to set as home page, and then open Preferences and click the Use Current page button  

Default Search Provider:

 1. Open Firefox Preferences 2. Open the Search tab 3. Click the drop down menu of the search box and select your preferred Search Engine from the list.  

New Tab:

 1. Open Tools 2. Select Add-ons 3. Select the Extensions tab 4. Find the Chumsearch Addon and click the disable or remove button  

"2. Why am I seeing ads?"

Chumsearch is not popping any ads or pages on your Mac. Chumsearch only offers search help on Safari and/or Chrome and/or Firefox.

@Alexvh11 thank you! That worked!

Open Browser Preferences (also called settings). In the Start Up section click the Set Pages link. 3. In the box that opens, type in or paste the web address (URL) of the website you want to set as your new home page 4. Click OK 5. Do the same in the Appearance section. Click the Change link and past the web address (URL) again 6. Click OK

At the Search section. Click on Manage search engines, remove the search engine you don't need it. (Do not miss this step!)

Hello,

I tried any solution suggested in this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7502921

but still when I open Chrome, ChumSearch is the starting page.

Here below I paste my report in EteCheck.

Thank you in advance for any help or idea on how to solve this issue.

EtreCheck version: 3.1.3 (337)

Report generated 2016-11-28 13:58:31

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime 1:46

Performance: Excellent

Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Problem: Other problem

Hardware Information: ⓘ

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, Late 2015)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

iMac - model: iMac16,2

1 3,1 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-5675R) CPU: 4-core

8 GB RAM Not upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1867 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1867 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

Wireless: Unknown

Video Information: ⓘ

Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200

iMac 4096 x 2304

System Software: ⓘ

macOS Sierra 10.12.1 (16B2657) - Time since boot: less than an hour

Disk Information: ⓘ

Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500GB disk0 : (500,11 GB) (Solid State - TRIM: No)

[Show SMART report]

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Macintosh SSD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499.25 GB (407.69 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

USB Information: ⓘ

Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Logitech USB Receiver

Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub

Apple, Inc Apple Keyboard

Apple Inc. iPhone

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ⓘ

Anywhere

Kernel Extensions: ⓘ

/Applications/Parallels Desktop.app

[not loaded] com.parallels.kext.hypervisor (12.1.0 41489 - SDK 10.9 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

[not loaded] com.parallels.kext.netbridge (12.1.0 41489 - SDK 10.9 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

[not loaded] com.parallels.kext.usbconnect (12.1.0 41489 - SDK 10.9 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

[not loaded] com.parallels.kext.vnic (12.1.0 41489 - SDK 10.9 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

/Applications/VMware Fusion.app

[not loaded] com.vmware.kext.vmci (8.5.2 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

[not loaded] com.vmware.kext.vmioplug.15.2.0 (8.5.2 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

[not loaded] com.vmware.kext.vmnet (8.5.2 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

[not loaded] com.vmware.kext.vmx86 (8.5.2 - 2016-11-16) [Support]

/Library/Extensions

[loaded] com.avira.kext.FileAccessControl (1.2.4 - SDK 10.9 - 2016-11-27) [Support]

[loaded] com.movavi.driver.SoundGrabber (1.6.5 - SDK 10.6 - 2016-11-27) [Support]

Startup Items: ⓘ

TuxeraNTFSUnmountHelper: Path: /Library/StartupItems/TuxeraNTFSUnmountHelper

Startup items no longer function in OS X Yosemite or later

System Launch Agents: ⓘ

[not loaded] 7 Apple tasks

[loaded] 182 Apple tasks

[running] 90 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[not loaded] 41 Apple tasks

[loaded] 168 Apple tasks

[running] 102 Apple tasks

Launch Agents: ⓘ

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (2016-11-16) [Support]

[loaded] com.avira.antivirus.general.agent.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[loaded] com.avira.antivirus.gjallarhorn.plist (2016-11-15) [Support]

[loaded] com.avira.antivirus.notifications.agent.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[loaded] com.avira.antivirus.odscan.default.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[loaded] com.avira.antivirus.scheduler.agent.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[running] com.avira.antivirus.systray.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[loaded] com.avira.antivirus.telemetry.agent.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[loaded] com.avira.antivirus.update.default.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[running] com.avira.helper.avstats.plist (2016-11-16) [Support]

Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[failed] com.avira.antivirus.dbcleaner.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[running] com.avira.helper.watchdox.plist (2016-11-27) [Support]

[running] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Agent.plist (2016-11-12) [Support]

[running] com.malwarebytes.HelperTool.plist (2016-11-28) [Support]

[loaded] com.purevpn.macapp.HelperTool.plist (2016-11-12) [Support]

User Launch Agents: ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (2016-11-16) [Support]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (2016-11-12) [Support]

[loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Scheduler.plist (2016-11-28)

User Login Items: ⓘ

iTunesHelper Application (2016-11-12)

(/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Dropbox Application (2016-11-12)

(/Applications/Dropbox.app)

CleanMyMac 3 Menu Application (2016-09-25)

(/Applications/CleanMyMac 3.app/Contents/MacOS/CleanMyMac 3 Menu.app)

VMware Fusion Start Menu Application (2016-11-11)

(/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/VMware Fusion Start Menu.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

AdobeAAMDetect: AdobeAAMDetect 1.0.0.0 - SDK 10.6 (2016-11-16) [Support]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (2016-10-21)

Safari Extensions: ⓘ

Open in Internet Explorer - Parallels - http://www.parallels.com (2016-11-16)

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ

Tuxera NTFS (2016-11-12) [Support]

Time Machine: ⓘ

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ

72% savapi

26% com.malwarebytes.HelperTool

25% suggestd

16% helpd

12% avguard-scanner(10)

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ

713 MB com.malwarebytes.HelperTool

705 MB kernel_task

688 MB Google Chrome Helper(5)

516 MB savapi

295 MB avguard.bin

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ

2.13 GB Available RAM

17 MB Free RAM

5.87 GB Used RAM

2.11 GB Cached files

0 B Swap Used

Diagnostics Information: ⓘ

Nov 28, 2016, 01:53:24 PM Self test - passed

Chrome > Settings (column of three dots at the top right) > On start-up > Open a specific set of pages > Set pages.

Choose the page(s) you want, e.g. https://www.google.com

tt2

Thanks... I completely missed that option 😊

Other than that, everything should be ok, or? (I cleaned the system with CleanMyMac 3 and Malwarebytes. Also I use Avira Antivirus).

I'd get rid of CleanMyMac, and you shouldn't really need Avira either.

tt2

Why should I get rid of CleanMyMac?

And why Avira? Or do you mean there is no really reason to have an antivirus in macOS?

I am new to the macOS world.

Take a look at Effective defenses against malware and other threats.

tt2

I tried all of of the suggested things and nothing works. It is still on there. It will bring up the new tabs but Chumsearch is still on there along with them. How can I uninstall it?

Which browser are you using? You probably need to manually reset home page, new tab options, and search engine settings. For Safari these should be under Safari > Preferences > General, and then Search.

tt2

I am using chrome and I did all that, but thanks for the reply. It is still on there.

What extensions are installed in Chrome? You can get to these using Settings > Extensions from the icon with three dots at the top right of Chrome.

tt2

I did that also. All of the sudden it is gone now. I went back in and redid all the settings for the 4th time and I guess it took finally. Thanks again.

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2