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how to remove weknow.ac virus

My Mac Book is infected with weknow.ac virus. How can remove this virus?

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Sep 13, 2018 10:19 AM

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Question marked as Best answer

Thank you a lot. You saved my day!

Posted on Dec 1, 2018 2:47 AM

3 replies
Question marked as Helpful

Sep 25, 2018 3:59 PM in response to udayfromwalnut

My mom had this virus and was unable to remove it. I was helping her and tried everything I could, plus she spoke with three Level 2 Apple techs and in the end, they could not help, but FINALLY, these instructions solved the issue. This was posted by Skanson on another post. I changed around the instructions just a bit to make them more clear. If you have tried the other stuff and cannot remove the virus try this. It has worked for me and others.


"weknow.ac" changes a group of Chrome policies so as to set a new default homepage, new tab behavior, etc. You can see your current Chrome policies by typing chrome://policy/ into your URL bar. If you're infected, it should be very obvious as the half-dozen or so policies changed by weknow will be displayed.


Use the command line to delete / modify the affected policies. You do this by opening up "Terminal" and copy and paste each of the following entries below. I did each one at a time. I copy and pasted the first line and then hit enter and then went to the next until I had finished all 6 below:


defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageIsNewTabPage -bool false

defaults write com.google.Chrome NewTabPageLocation -string "https://www.google.com/"

defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageLocation -string "https://www.google.com/"

defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL

defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderNewTabURL

defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderName


Quit Chome and restart it and voila the virus will be gone. I tried everything and 3 phone calls with Apple and this was the only thing that worked.

126 replies
Question marked as Helpful

Sep 25, 2018 3:59 PM in response to udayfromwalnut

My mom had this virus and was unable to remove it. I was helping her and tried everything I could, plus she spoke with three Level 2 Apple techs and in the end, they could not help, but FINALLY, these instructions solved the issue. This was posted by Skanson on another post. I changed around the instructions just a bit to make them more clear. If you have tried the other stuff and cannot remove the virus try this. It has worked for me and others.


"weknow.ac" changes a group of Chrome policies so as to set a new default homepage, new tab behavior, etc. You can see your current Chrome policies by typing chrome://policy/ into your URL bar. If you're infected, it should be very obvious as the half-dozen or so policies changed by weknow will be displayed.


Use the command line to delete / modify the affected policies. You do this by opening up "Terminal" and copy and paste each of the following entries below. I did each one at a time. I copy and pasted the first line and then hit enter and then went to the next until I had finished all 6 below:


defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageIsNewTabPage -bool false

defaults write com.google.Chrome NewTabPageLocation -string "https://www.google.com/"

defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageLocation -string "https://www.google.com/"

defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL

defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderNewTabURL

defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderName


Quit Chome and restart it and voila the virus will be gone. I tried everything and 3 phone calls with Apple and this was the only thing that worked.

Oct 17, 2018 8:07 PM in response to ChanelCinq

Thank you so much for typing out the steps and commands. I spent the whole day clearing the we-know and it was still messing up the Chrome. I tried MalwareByte and CC something and I agree with the above that installing more stuff is adding to the confusion, and want money to fix the problem -I wouldn't know what they are doing with my Mac either. So relieved.

how to remove weknow.ac virus

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