MainBoardSearch is a PUP (potentially unwanted program) that belongs to the family of Adware. What does Adware mean? Adware’s basic purpose is to display advertisements. These advertisements are often presented as advertising banners, pop-ups or various offers and deals. Clicks on the advertisements produce a monetary payoff for the software developers. MainBoardSearch adware may work like Spyware, since it sends user data such as searches and trends to advertisers.
Unwanted ads
Does adware software steal your confidential information? MainBoardSearch adware can gather your Net browsing activity by saving URLs visited, IP addresses, web-browser version and type, cookie information, Internet Service Provider (ISP) and websites visited. Such kind of behavior can lead to serious security problems or personal info theft. This is another reason why the MainBoardSearch adware should be deleted ASAP.
Threat Summary
| Name | MainBoardSearch |
| Type | adware, potentially unwanted application (PUA), popups, popup advertisements, pop-up virus |
| Symptoms |
|
| Removal | MainBoardSearch removal guide |
How does MainBoardSearch adware get on your MAC system
The most popular method to get adware is free software installation package. Most often, a user have a chance to disable all included ‘offers’, but certain install packages are made to confuse the average users, in order to trick them into installing potentially unwanted programs and adware software. Anyway, easier to prevent adware rather than clean up your MAC system after one. So, keep your web browser updated (turn on automatic updates), run good antivirus apps, double check free software before you run it (do a google search, scan a downloaded file with VirusTotal), avoid shady and unknown websites.
The best option is to use the instructions posted below to free your machine of adware software and thereby delete MainBoardSearch ads.
How to Remove MainBoardSearch adware
Even if you’ve the up-to-date classic antivirus for Mac OS installed, and you have checked your computer for malicious software and removed anything found, you need to do the guide below. The MainBoardSearch removal is not simple as installing another antivirus. Classic antivirus applications are not created to run together and will conflict with each other, or possibly crash Mac. Instead we recommend complete the manual steps below after that run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, which is a free application dedicated to scan for and remove MainBoardSearch adware. Run the tool to ensure the adware software is removed.
To remove MainBoardSearch, execute the following steps:
- Manual MainBoardSearch adware removal
- Automatic Removal of MainBoardSearch
- How to stay safe online
- To sum up
Manual MainBoardSearch adware removal
First of all, try to remove MainBoardSearch adware manually; to do this, follow the steps below. Of course, manual adware removal requires more time and may not be suitable for those who are poorly versed in computer settings. In this case, we suggest that you scroll down to the section that describes how to remove MainBoardSearch adware using free tools.
Remove adware through the Finder
Check out the Finder (Applications section) to see all installed applications. If you see any unknown and suspicious programs, they are the ones you need to remove.
Open Finder and click “Applications”.
Very carefully look around the entire list of programs installed on your MAC OS. Most probably, one of them is the MainBoardSearch adware. If you have many software installed, you can help simplify the search of malicious programs by sort the list by date of installation.
Once you have found a suspicious, unwanted or unused program, right click to it and choose “Move to Trash”. Another way is drag the application from the Applications folder to the Trash.
Don’t forget, select Finder -> “Empty Trash”.
Delete MainBoardSearch from Firefox by resetting browser settings
If the Firefox web-browser is affected by MainBoardSearch and you want to recover the Mozilla Firefox settings back to their default values, then you should follow the few simple steps below. However, your saved passwords and bookmarks will not be changed, deleted or cleared.
First, launch the Firefox. Next, click the button in the form of three horizontal stripes (
). It will display the drop-down menu. Next, press the Help button (
).
In the Help menu press the “Troubleshooting Information”. In the upper-right corner of the “Troubleshooting Information” page press on “Refresh Firefox” button as displayed below.
Confirm your action, click the “Refresh Firefox”.
Remove MainBoardSearch from Chrome
Reset Google Chrome settings will remove MainBoardSearch ads from web browser and disable harmful extensions. It will also clear cached and temporary data (cookies, site data and content). However, your themes, bookmarks, history, passwords, and web form auto-fill information will not be deleted.
- First launch the Google Chrome and click Menu button (small button in the form of three dots).
- It will show the Chrome main menu. Select More Tools, then click Extensions.
- You will see the list of installed extensions. If the list has the extension labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following tutorial: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
- Now open the Google Chrome menu once again, click the “Settings” menu.
- You will see the Chrome’s settings page. Scroll down and press “Advanced” link.
- Scroll down again and click the “Reset” button.
- The Chrome will open the reset profile settings page as on the image above.
- Next click the “Reset” button.
- Once this procedure is done, your internet browser’s default search provider, new tab and startpage will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the article How to reset Google Chrome settings to default.
Get rid of MainBoardSearch adware from Safari
The Safari reset is great if your browser is hijacked or you have unwanted add-ons or toolbars on your web browser, that installed by an malware.
Click Safari menu and select “Preferences”.
It will open the Safari Preferences window. Next, click the “Extensions” tab. Look for unknown and suspicious add-ons on left panel, select it, then click the “Uninstall” button. Most important to get rid of all unknown plugins from Safari.
Once complete, click “General” tab. Change the “Default Search Engine” to Google.
Find the “Homepage” and type into textfield “https://www.google.com”.
Automatic Removal of MainBoardSearch
Manual removal guide does not always allow to completely remove the adware, as it is not easy to identify and remove components of adware and all malicious files from hard disk. Therefore, it’s recommended that you run malicious software removal utility to completely remove MainBoardSearch off your web-browser. Several free malware removal tools are currently available that may be used against the adware software. The optimum way would be to use MalwareBytes Anti Malware.
How to automatically remove MainBoardSearch with MalwareBytes
We advise using the MalwareBytes Anti Malware. You can download and install MalwareBytes to scan for adware and thereby get rid of MainBoardSearch ads from your internet browsers. When installed and updated, this free malware remover automatically scans for and deletes all threats exist on the machine.
- Click the following link to download the latest version of MalwareBytes Free for Mac.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware (Mac)
20851 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: September 10, 2020
- Once the download is finished, close all applications and windows on your Apple Mac. Open a file location. Run the downloaded file and follow the prompts.
- Click the “Scan” button to detect MainBoardSearch adware. This procedure can take some time, so please be patient. While the MalwareBytes tool is checking, you may see number of objects it has identified as being infected by malware.
- As the scanning ends, a list of all items detected is prepared. Review the results once the tool has done the system scan. If you think an entry should not be quarantined, then uncheck it. Otherwise, simply click “Remove Selected Items”.
How to stay safe online
In order to increase your security and protect your machine against new annoying advertisements and harmful web-pages, you need to run ad-blocking application that stops an access to harmful ads and web-sites. Moreover, the program can stop the open of intrusive advertising, which also leads to faster loading of web pages and reduce the consumption of web traffic.
AdGuard can be downloaded from the following link.
3687 downloads
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: January 17, 2018
Once the download is complete, run the downloaded file. The “Setup Wizard” window will show up on the computer screen.
Follow the prompts. AdGuard will then be installed. A window will show up asking you to confirm that you want to see a quick guide. Click “Skip” button to close the window and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial that will assist you get to know AdGuard better.
Each time, when you start your computer, AdGuard will start automatically and stop intrusive pop-up advertisements, block malicious or misleading web-pages.
To sum up
Now your MAC system should be free of the MainBoardSearch ads. We suggest that you keep MalwareBytes Free (to periodically scan your MAC for new adwares and other malicious software) and AdGuard (to help you stop intrusive pop-up ads and harmful web sites). Moreover, to prevent any adware, please stay clear of unknown and third party programs.
If you need more help with the MainBoardSearch adware related issues, go to here.
