How to get rid of Searcher4u.com redirect from Chrome, Firefox, Safari

What is Searcher4u.com?

The cyber threat analysts have determined that Searcher4u.com is a website that promoted by potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) and Browser hijackers. It affects your Apple Mac and alters browser settings. Searcher4u can take over your browser and force you to use the www.searcher4u.com web-site as your search engine, new tab page and home page. When Searcher4u.com in the MAC, it can gather personal info such as search queries as well as browsing history. So if you find this PUA on your computer you need to remove it. The detailed removal tutorial will assist you delete Searcher4u.com and protect your machine from more dangerous applications.

When you perform a search through Searcher4u.com, in addition to search results from Yahoo, Bing or Google Custom Search that provide links to web pages, news articles, images or videos you’ll also be shown tons of annoying advertisements. The devs behind Searcher4u.com doing this to generate advertising money from these ads.

As well as unwanted internet browser redirects to www.searcher4u.com, the browser hijacker can gather your Internet browsing activity by recording web pages visited, URLs visited, IP addresses, cookie information, browser version and type and Internet Service Provider (ISP). Such kind of behavior can lead to serious security problems or personal information theft. This is another reason why the hijacker that redirects the web-browser to Searcher4u.com should be removed immediately.

If you noticed any of the symptoms mentioned above, we suggest you to perform steps below to get rid of browser hijacker and delete Searcher4u.com from the computer.

How can a browser hijacker get on your MAC

PUPs and browser hijackers come together with certain free programs. So always read carefully the installation screens, disclaimers, ‘Terms of Use’ and ‘Software license’ appearing during the install procedure. Additionally pay attention for bundled software which are being installed along with the main application. Ensure that you unchecked all of them! Also, use an ad blocking program that will help to block malicious, misleading, illegitimate or untrustworthy web pages.

Threat Summary

Name	Searcher4u.com
Type	browser hijacker, search provider hijacker, home page hijacker, redirect virus, PUP
Affected Browser Settings	home page, search engine, newtab page URL
Distribution	shady popup ads, free programs setup files, fake updaters
Symptoms	Pop ups and newtabs are loaded without your request. You keep getting redirected to unfamiliar web sites. New entries appear in your Programs folder. An unwanted internet browser toolbar appears in your web-browser. Your web browser start page has modified without your permission.
Removal	Searcher4u.com removal guide

How to remove Searcher4u.com from Chrome, Firefox, Safari

In the guide below, we will try to cover the Safari, Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and provide general help to remove Searcher4u.com redirect. You may find some minor differences in your Mac OS install. No matter, you should be okay if you follow the steps outlined below: delete all suspicious and unknown apps, reset web browsers settings, run free malicious software removal tools. Read this manual carefully, bookmark it or open this page on your smartphone, because you may need to exit your web-browser or reboot your MAC.

To remove Searcher4u.com, complete the steps below:

1. Remove profiles created by Browser hijackers
2. Delete Browser hijacker related apps through the Finder
3. Remove Browser hijacker related files and folders
4. Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes
5. Remove Searcher4u.com from Safari, Chrome, Firefox
6. How to stop Searcher4u.com redirect
7. To sum up

Remove profiles created by Searcher4u.com

Browser hijackers can make changes to the Mac system such as malicious changes to browser settings, and the addition of malicious system profiles. You need to check the system preferences, find and remove malicious profiles and ensure your settings are as you expect.

Click the System Preferences icon ( ) in the Dock, or choose Apple menu ( ) > System Preferences.

In System Preferences, click Profiles, then select a profile related to the browser hijacker.

Click the minus button ( – ) located at the bottom-left of the Profiles screen to remove the profile.
Note: if you do not see Profiles in the System Preferences, that means there are no profiles installed on your Mac, which is normal.

Delete Browser hijacker related apps through the Finder

The next step to remove adware, PUPs and browser hijackers is to delete unknown and suspicious software. Using the Finder you can do this quickly and easily. We suggest you not to skip this step, as it often helps to get rid of intrusive advertisements and web browser redirects.

Open Finder and click “Applications”.

Carefully browse through the list of installed applications and remove all suspicious and unknown software.

After you’ve found anything dubious that may be the hijacker responsible for redirecting your browser to the searcher4u.com web-site or other potentially unwanted program, then right click this program and choose “Move to Trash”. Once complete, Empty Trash.

Remove Browser hijacker related files and folders

Now you need to try to find the browser hijacker related files and folders, and then delete them manually. You need to look for these files in certain directories. To quickly open them, we recommend using the “Go to Folder…” command.

Some files created by Browser hijackers are hidden from the user. To find and delete them, you need to enable “show hidden files”. To do this, use the shortcut CMD + SHIFT + . Press once to show hidden files and again to hide them. There is another way. Click Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal. In Terminal, paste the following text: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Press Enter. Hold the ‘Option/alt’ key, then right click on the Finder icon in the dock and click Relaunch.

Click on the Finder icon. From the menu bar, select Go and click “Go to Folder…”. As a result, a small window opens that allows you to quickly open a specific directory.

Check for Browser hijackers generated files in the /Library/LaunchAgents folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/LaunchAgents

This will open the contents of the “/Library/LaunchAgents” folder. Look carefully at it and pay special attention to recently created files, as well as files that have a suspicious name. Move all suspicious files to the Trash. A few examples of files: installapp.plist, com.google.defaultsearch.plist, , com.net-preferences.plist, search.plist, com.machelper.plist and macsearch.plist. Most often, adware, browser hijackers and PUPs create several files with similar names.

Check for Browser hijackers generated files in the /Library/Application Support folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/Application Support

This will open the contents of the “Application Support” folder. Look carefully at its contents, pay special attention to recently added/changed folders and files. Check the contents of suspicious folders. Move all suspicious folders and files to the Trash.

Check for Browser hijackers generated files in the “~/Library/LaunchAgents” folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
~/Library/LaunchAgents

Proceed in the same way as with the “/Library/LaunchAgents” and “/Library/Application Support” folders. Look for suspicious and recently added files. Move all suspicious files to the Trash.

Check for Browser hijackers generated files in the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/LaunchDaemons

Carefully browse the entire list of files and pay special attention to recently created files, as well as files that have a suspicious name. Move all suspicious files to the Trash. A few examples of files to be deleted: com.search.system.plist, com.machelper.system.plist, com.installapp.system.plist, and com.macsearch.system.plist. In most cases, adware, browser hijackers and potentially unwanted programs create several files with similar names.

Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes

We advise using MalwareBytes. You may download and install MalwareBytes Free to detect and delete Searcher4u.com associated programs from your Mac. When installed and updated, the malicious software remover automatically scans for and removes all security threats present on the MAC.

Download MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM) on your Apple Mac by clicking on the following link.

When the downloading process is done, close all windows on your computer. Further, open the saved file. Follow the prompts.

The MalwareBytes Free will automatically launch and you can see its main window as shown in the following example.

Next, click the “Scan Now” button for scanning your machine for the browser hijacker responsible for redirecting user searches to Searcher4u.com. While the MalwareBytes utility is scanning, you can see number of objects it has identified as being infected by malicious software.

When MalwareBytes Anti-Malware has finished scanning, MalwareBytes will display a scan report. All detected items will be marked. You can delete them all by simply click the “Quarantine” button.

The MalwareBytes Anti Malware will delete browser hijacker that cause a redirect to Searcher4u.com web-page and move the selected items to the Quarantine.

Remove Searcher4u.com from Safari, Chrome, Firefox

Remove unwanted plugins is a easy solution to delete Searcher4u.com and restore internet browser’s settings which have been changed by hijacker.

Google Chrome	Mozilla Firefox
In the top right corner, click on Google Chrome’s main menu button, represented by three vertical dots. Select ‘More tools’, then ‘Extensions’. Click ‘Remove’ to uninstall an extension. Click ‘Remove’ in the dialog box. You can also try to remove Searcher4u.com by reset Google Chrome settings.	Click on ‘menu’ button and select ‘Add-ons’. Go to ‘Extensions’ tab. To uninstall an add-on, click on ‘Remove’ button next to it. If you are still experiencing issues with Searcher4u.com removal, you need to reset Firefox browser.
Safari
On the top menu select ‘Safari’, then ‘Preferences’. Select ‘Extensions’ tab. Select an extension you want to delete and click ‘Uninstall’ button next to it.

How to stop Searcher4u.com redirect

Running an ad blocker program like AdGuard is an effective way to alleviate the risks. Additionally, ad blocking applications will also protect you from harmful ads and web sites, and, of course, block redirection chain to Searcher4u.com and similar webpages.

Click the link below to download the latest version of AdGuard for Mac OS.

Once downloading is finished, launch the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen. Follow the prompts.

Each time, when you start your MAC system, AdGuard will start automatically and stop unwanted ads, block Searcher4u.com redirect, as well as other malicious or misleading webpages.

To sum up

Now your MAC system should be free of the browser hijacker that causes browsers to open the Searcher4u.com web page. We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you stop unwanted popups and unwanted harmful web sites) and MalwareBytes Free (to periodically scan your MAC for new hijackers and other malicious software).

If you are still having problems while trying to get rid of Searcher4u.com from the Mozilla Firefox, Chrome and Safari, then ask for help here here.