According to security researchers, SearchTopic is a potentially unwanted program (PUP) from the Aware group. How can Adware be dangerous to your Apple Mac? Adware is type of malware that presents unwanted advertising on a computer, redirects search requests to advertising web-pages and collects personal data for marketing purposes. SearchTopic can show banner ads, full-screen ads, pop ups, videos, or other varieties of online advertising. Adware can attack your machine’s internet browsers like the Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome. Maybe you approve the idea that the ads or popups is just a small problem. But these intrusive advertisements eat MAC system resources and slow down your MAC system performance.
Unwanted ads
Does adware steal your personal data? The SearchTopic adware can gather user info, including:
- IP addresses;
- URLs visited;
- search queries/terms;
- clicks on links and ads;
- internet browser version information.
The step-by-step guide below will help you to remove adware software as well as get r id of SearchTopic ads. What is more, the step-by-step guide below will help you uninstall other harmful software such as unwanted toolbars and browser hijackers that can be installed onto MAC system along with the adware software.
How does SearchTopic get on your Apple Mac
Adware such as SearchTopic usually comes on the computer with free applications. Most often, it comes without the user’s knowledge. Therefore, many users aren’t even aware that their MAC has been affected with PUPs and adware software. Please follow the easy rules in order to protect your MAC system from adware software and potentially unwanted applications: do not install any suspicious apps, read the user agreement and select only the Custom, Manual or Advanced installation mode. Also, always try to find a review of the program on the World Wide Web. Be careful and attentive!
Threat Summary
| Name | SearchTopic, Search Topic 1.0 app |
| Type | adware software, PUP (potentially unwanted program), pop ups, popup virus, pop up advertisements |
| Symptoms |
|
| Removal | SearchTopic removal guide |
How to Remove SearchTopic (removal steps)
To get rid of SearchTopic adware from your MAC OS, you must delete all suspicious apps and every component that could be related to the adware. Besides, to restore your internet browser homepage, search provider and new tab page, you should reset the infected browsers. As soon as you are done with SearchTopic removal procedure, we suggest you scan your computer with malware removal tools listed below. It’ll complete the removal procedure on your machine.
To remove SearchTopic, execute the following steps:
- How to remove SearchTopic without any software
- Automatic Removal of SearchTopic adware
- How to stay safe online
- To sum up
How to remove SearchTopic without any software
First of all, try to remove SearchTopic adware manually; to do this, follow the steps below. Of course, manual removal of adware software requires more time and may not be suitable for those who are poorly versed in computer settings. In this case, we recommend that you scroll down to the section that describes how to remove SearchTopic adware using free utilities.
Remove SearchTopic related software through the Finder
First, you should try to identify and remove the program that causes the appearance of unwanted advertisements or browser redirect, using the ‘Applications’ list that located in the Finder.
Open Finder and click “Applications”.
Carefully browse through the list of installed software and remove all dubious and unknown applications.
Once you have found anything suspicious that may be the SearchTopic adware or other PUP, then right click this application and select “Move to Trash”. Once complete, Empty Trash.
Remove SearchTopic adware from Safari
If you find that Safari browser settings like newtab page, default search provider and home page having been modified by the SearchTopic adware, then you may revert back your settings, via the reset internet browser procedure.
Click Safari menu and select “Preferences”.
It will open the Safari Preferences window. Next, click the “Extensions” tab. Look for unknown and suspicious plugins on left panel, select it, then click the “Uninstall” button. Most important to get rid of all unknown extensions 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”.
Remove SearchTopic adware from Firefox
This step will help you get rid of SearchTopic ads, third-party toolbars, disable malicious extensions and restore your default home page, newtab and search provider settings.
Launch the Firefox and press the menu button (it looks like three stacked lines) at the top right of the browser screen. Next, click the question-mark icon at the bottom of the drop-down menu. It will display the slide-out menu.
Select the “Troubleshooting information”. If you’re unable to access the Help menu, then type “about:support” in your address bar and press Enter. It bring up the “Troubleshooting Information” page like below.
Click the “Refresh Firefox” button at the top right of the Troubleshooting Information page. Select “Refresh Firefox” in the confirmation dialog box. The Firefox will begin a process to fix your problems that caused by the SearchTopic adware. Once, it’s finished, click the “Finish” button.
Remove SearchTopic adware software from Google Chrome
If adware, other program or extensions changed your Chrome settings without your knowledge, then you can delete SearchTopic adware and restore your web browser settings in Google Chrome at any time. Your saved bookmarks, form auto-fill information and passwords won’t be cleared or changed.
- First start the Google Chrome and press Menu button (small button in the form of three dots).
- It will display the Chrome main menu. Select More Tools, then click Extensions.
- You’ll 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 instructions: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
- Now open the Google Chrome menu once again, press the “Settings” menu.
- You will see the Chrome’s settings page. Scroll down and click “Advanced” link.
- Scroll down again and press the “Reset” button.
- The Google Chrome will open the reset profile settings page as shown on the screen above.
- Next click the “Reset” button.
- Once this procedure is complete, your web-browser’s newtab page, home page and default search provider will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the post How to reset Chrome settings to default.
Automatic Removal of SearchTopic adware
The easiest way to delete SearchTopic adware is to run an antimalware program capable of detecting adware software. We advise try MalwareBytes Anti Malware or another free malware remover which listed below. It has excellent detection rate when it comes to adware, hijacker infections and other PUPs.
Automatically remove SearchTopic adware with MalwareBytes Free
We suggest using the MalwareBytes. You can download and install MalwareBytes Free to detect adware and thereby delete SearchTopic ads from your internet browsers. When installed and updated, this free malware remover automatically detects and removes all threats exist on the machine.
- Installing the MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM) is simple. First you’ll need to download MalwareBytes Free on your MAC by clicking on the following link.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware (Mac)
18654 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: September 10, 2020
- After downloading is done, close all applications and windows on your machine. Open a directory in which you saved it. Run the downloaded file and follow the prompts.
- Click the “Scan” button . MalwareBytes Free program will scan through the whole computer for the SearchTopic adware software. A system scan may take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on your computer. When a threat is detected, the count of the security threats will change accordingly.
- After MalwareBytes has finished scanning, you will be displayed the list of all detected items on your Apple Mac. When you are ready, click “Remove Selected Items”.
How to stay safe online
In order to increase your security and protect your Apple Mac against new intrusive ads and harmful web sites, you need to use ad-blocking program that stops an access to malicious ads and web sites. Moreover, the program can block the open of intrusive advertising, which also leads to faster loading of web pages and reduce the consumption of web traffic.
Visit the following page to download the latest version of AdGuard for Mac.
3166 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 guidance that will help you get to know AdGuard better.
Each time, when you launch your Apple Mac, AdGuard will launch automatically and stop annoying pop up ads, block harmful and misleading web sites.
To sum up
Now your MAC system should be clean of the SearchTopic adware. We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you block unwanted pop-ups and intrusive harmful webpages) and MalwareBytes Anti Malware (to periodically scan your computer for new adwares and other malicious software).
If you are still having problems while trying to remove SearchTopic ads from the Firefox, Safari and Chrome, then ask for help here here.
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